i understand the word to come out of Paolo Freire' theories on
liberatory pedagogy (e.g., Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 1977).
Praxis is supposed to describe strategic educative relations amongst the
learners and teacher.
Practice is uncritical teaching,
and praxis is a political engagement that explicitly addresses a need for
emancipatory and critical work;
It is perhaps the "x" that pretends to signal the political significance;
The same change was made to the word
"reflective", which means, "... to be thoughtful or contemplative;"
but to be _reflexive_ is to think politically on one's privilege and power,
so that, by definition, _reflexivity_ is the political act of critical
self-interrogation.
Praxis is absolutely different from Activity -
Activity is, like Speech, a general term of reference that requires
an historical/social relation for meaning.
Praxis, on the other hand, presumes a particular historical context has
determined the conditions of oppression and inequality
In other words, if the learning context were successfully organized as
equitable and emancipatory,
there would be no need for praxis - Praxis is a method of intervention.
.
Now i haven't got a reference
for any of this so i could be mistaken; however, i know Freire writes about
praxis as liberatory
pedagogy.
Praxis is a word that has been overused and under-developed; it may well be
the case the the author you are reading is equating practice with praxis.
Certainly overuse is the best way to empty a word of its political
intention: the same way
a word like "patriarchy" can still accurately describe systemic domination
and the forced maintenance of women as a slave labour class,
the effect of the word has been emptied through repetition, now defused
enough so that "patriarchal structures of oppression," for example,
sounds like "...a tale told by an idiot: full of sound and fury, signifying
nothing."
diane
""""""""""""""""""""""" """""""""""""""""""""""""""""
When she walks,
the revolution's coming.
In her hips, there's revolution.
When she talks, I hear revolution.
In her kiss, I taste the revolution.
(poem by Kathleen Hanna: Riot Grrl)
******************************************
diane celia hodges
university of british columbia
centre for the study of curriculum and knowledge
vancouver, british columbia, canada