by Benjamin Abtan
I have been teaching about race and identity to over 1,000 students from over 70 countries in the United States, France, Rwanda, Ukraine, and Italy. Here are my key observations, learnings, and recommendations.
First, Deal with Emotions
Identities are intimate and loaded with emotions. How to speak about intimacy in public? This is a challenge for all, especially when the public debate is full of symbolic violence as is the case when it comes to identity.
My students start the course with little capacity to manage the intense emotions they feel during conversations about race and identity. Their first instinct is to use the language of Black Lives Matter. They probably expect to get symbolic and self-image benefits. As a result, they get protected from the intrusion of violence into their intimacy but they also prevent themselves from having a real discussion.
I do not shy away from addressing the emotional dimension of race and identity. There is a
challenge to overcome: to ensure that the energy released does not destroy the group’s ability to learn. Therefore, I constantly pay attention to the “heat” – a metaphorical reference to the amount of stress in the group. If I feel the “heat” is too high and prevents progress, I pace the work, steer toward less controversial issues, make sure more consensual voices are heard, and I use mine to that end. As I am part of the system, I also observe, interpret and use my own emotions. As my blind spots, sensitivity and subjectivity influence my interpretations, I remain mindful of alternative perspectives I could have considered.
In terms of pedagogy, my courses are screen-free: no smartphone, no computer, no tablet. This makes all of us feel our emotions more intensively, thus more able to work on and with them. Concretely, I start each session by not speaking but by letting my students speak. They have only one constraint: to begin with something coming from the readings – be it a question, an idea, a quote. During these student-led discussions, I favor their appropriation and the expression of their subjectivity, rather than an intellectual or conceptual approach that would make it more difficult for them to take ownership of their emotions and find their own voice.
The result is that, after some sessions, students learn to move from a confrontation of
stereotyped statements as is usual on social media to a mature discussion in which they all take an active part.
As a Teaching Position, Be with the Students, at Their Level
We are not talking about theoretical knowledge that someone possesses and would pass on to students, but of capacity that we all need to constantly develop. In our efforts to dismantle racism, we are all part of the same movement. Of course, students need to acquire theoretical knowledge, and I ensure they do so throughout the course.
In terms of pedagogy, I share with my students my personal stories, my challenges. Instead of coming to the class only with answers, I also come with my questions. I feel this approach embodies the attitude of constant efforts and openness that I encourage them to adopt.
We Cannot Avoid a Global Approach
Unresolved academic debates continue about the origins of racism, but what remains
indisputable is that it is a global phenomenon, with global roots and global effects. To dismantle racism and antisemitism, to develop impactful policies, we need to understand their global natures and take into account their evolutions around the globe.
To overcome the lack of non-English speaking sources, I mobilize researchers, activists, and community leaders from various countries. This makes it possible to access the relevant content brought by those who do not write, or who write in a language that the students and I do not speak.
In my pedagogy, I also use global sources in the sense that I assign not only book chapters and scientific articles, but also songs, poems, novels, documentaries, fiction movies, and speeches. Indeed, as racism has been present in our societies for centuries, its traces can be found in a variety of productions. Using non “classical” sources exemplifies the approach that I encourage my students to pursue. Indeed, only through innovative approaches can they drive meaningful change on identity-related issues.
The Ecological Catastrophe Is the Frame of All Issues
Listening to my students, I realized that the ecological catastrophe is for them a frame in which everything else takes place. It is constantly tightening, which causes ever greater tension in the system that we constitute as humans, alongside the other animals and living beings. In particular, this tension puts pressure on the categories of thought passed down by previous generations. Students respond to this pressure in two opposite ways. Most give in to it and get rid of these traditional categories, while others resist it and seek to reinforce them. The former circulate fluidly between genders, races, and sexual orientations, while the latter oppose such fluidity. Politically, these groups are usually labeled “liberals” and “conservatives”, and they address race and identity in very different ways. Thus, how students respond to the pressure of the ecological catastrophe is strongly related to how they approach race and identity.
In terms of pedagogy, I need to do a better job of integrating the ecological catastrophe into my teaching, although I feel that most of the tools I introduce are relevant to tackling it.
How to Do Better? Let’s Get Inspired by Local Communities and Transitional
Justice
Students want solutions. Unfortunately, there is no quick fix nor ready-to-be-used toolbox to provide short-term results. We have to accept imperfection as part of the journey. Rather, I propose an unsatisfactory objective: to do better, “imbere heza.”
Around the world, various resilient post-conflict local communities have made progress but
have often been overlooked because of despise and lack of documentation. Since the 1990s, the actions that allow societies to transition from conflict, dictatorship, or genocide to peaceful coexistence or democracy have been studied and conceptualized as Transitional Justice.
My teaching builds on the experiences of these communities and on the theories and practices of Transitional Justice. It introduces impactful tools and frameworks, and explores how they can be adapted to develop methodologies rooted in local cultures to help companies, institutions, communities and societies dismantle racism and identity-based conflicts.
A former advisor to the French Ministers of Foreign Affairs and of Justice, and to the United Nations, the World Bank, and international foundations, Benjamin Abtan established European networks of antiracist grassroots nongovermental organizations and of parliamentarians for human rights in 40 countries. An adjunct professor at Sciences Po Paris and ESCP Business School (Italy and France), he previously taught at the Kyiv Mohyla Academy in Ukraine, the University of Rwanda, the Yerevan State University in Armenia and Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachuetts, after acting as a lead teaching Assistant at Harvard University.
