Practices in the Chilean Public

Nº 47, 2015. Páginas 71-81 Diálogo Andino CRITICAL INQUIRY AS A WAY TO BREAK THE GLASS BETWEEN “NORMAL” PRACTICES IN THE CHILEAN PUBLIC ACADEMIA AND THE CASE OF COLOR LATIN AMERICAN MIGRANT STUDENTS IN OUR CLASSROOMS: A CALL TO HUMANIZE, A CALL TO REFLECT UPON LA INVESTIGACIÓN CRÍTICA COMO UNA FORMA DE ROMPER EL CRISTAL ENTRE LAS PRACTICAS ‘COMUNES’ EN LA ACADEMIA PÚBLICA CHILENA Y EL CASO DE LOS ESTUDIANTES MIGRANTES LATINOAMERICANOS DE COLOR EN NUESTRAS SALAS DE CLASES: UN LLAMADO A HUMANIZAR, UN LLAMADO A REFLEXIONAR” Pamela Zapata Sepúlveda*, María Emilia Tijoux Merino** & Michelle Espinoza Lobos*** This essay concerns the critical voices of 3 women researchers that examine and reflect about the Chilean educational system using the case of color Latin American students, in the context and from a current perspective of their public universities in Chile. Public policies in education, integration and segregation, challenges and current problems present or that could ocurr in our classrooms are included in this piece using experimental writing as a critical approach to tell, break silences, and as a way to evoke and pro- voke audiences. Taking a step towards action against social injustice and conservative nationalism and racism in the academia. Key words: Chilean higher education, integraty, social justice, color foreign students, experimental writing, critical methodologies. Este ensayo comprende las voces críticas de tres mujeres investigadoras que analizan y reflexionan sobre el actual sistema educa- cional chileno, usando el caso de los estudiantes de color en la academia. Estas reflexiones giran en torno a las políticas públicas en materia de educación, la integración y la segregación, los retos y los problemas actuales o que puedan ocurrir en nuestras salas de clase, los que son abordados utilizando la escritura experimental como una vía de aproximación crítica para decir, romper silencios, evocar y provocar audiencias. Dando un paso hacia la acción en contra de la injusticia social, el nacionalismo conservador y el racismo en el mundo académico. Palabras claves: educación superior chilena, integración, justicia social, estudiantes extranjeros de color, escritura experimental, metodologías críticas. “The struggle for critical subjectivity is JUST the North-Chilean-TERRITORY of the macro the struggle to occupy a space of hope – a Andean central south region. At the moment of liminal space, an intimation of the antistruc- these words I am writing from the corridor of my ture, of what lives in the in – between zone thoughts, dreams, ideals and my personal conflicts of undecidability – in which one can work against social injustice in my region. Hence, always toward a praxis of redemption”. confronting my current question about WHAT –Peter McLaren, 1997 COULD I DO to use Qualitative Inquiry as a way to support the lives of people suffering in my Chilean Introduction regional context. At the same time, what I could do to create Pamela Zapata writes: I live in a controversial new spaces in the academy to promote a critical place situated for some people as northern Chile, view in the classroom with my colleagues and stu- for others as EXTREME northern Chile, for me dents, and how this could be a way to connect our * School of Psychology and Philosophy at University of Tarapacá, Arica, Chile. Correo electrónico: [email protected] ** Department of Sociology at University of Chile, Santiago, Chile. Correo electrónico: [email protected] *** Faculty of Human Sciences at Arturo Prat University, Iquique, Chile. Faculty of Education at Monash University, Australia. Correo electrónico: [email protected] Recibido: 15 de enero de 2015. Aceptado: 20 de abril de 2015. 72 Pamela Zapata Sepúlveda, María Emilia Tijoux Merino & Michelle Espinoza Lobos lives and our problems with the academia and the could listen to them talking to each other globe. This as a way to encourage our voices and in a very lively and fun way. Most of them the voices of our students to do critical qualitative are taking pictures to capture this important research, to create our local knowledge relieving moment in their lives. Everyone would do our current social problems, to teach from decol- the same. Do you not believe it? All of this onized frameworks and promoting the connection takes place in different locations in the between our current problems and our lives in an historical and beautiful green areas of the era of neoliberal fundamentalism (e.g. Denzin & Quad Cam at UIUC. This area is the heart Giardina, 2015). In this, as Tami Spry (2011:39) of the students’ life in the university. It is says ¨in the conformative of meaning with others¨ a big green main quadrangle surrounded is where I find myself as a performative autoeth- by historic and beautiful buildings with nographic researcher. different colleges. In the front, just south of Now, at the moment I am writing these lines, the area, an auditorium protruding imposed I am in a safe multicultural academic space at on others, it is Foellinger Auditorium. the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Everybody is very happy now in the Quad [UIUC]– USA, physically distant but worried about Cam, I can feel the distress on their faces, my role in the academia. Thinking about how our and the pride in them and their parents for work could be a way to generate democratic and having completed their studies. Someone’s safe academic spaces to think, to create decolonized daughters and sons laugh happily because and democratic knowledge that could be applied to this is “THE DAY”. It’s time to celebrate. support the social problems of our communities, to It’s time to share with the friends and class- break silences as injustice and violence, improving mates from their times as undergraduate the well being of the people, and promoting criti- students at UIUC. cal social agents [our students] that could do real I am just walking around the Quad Cam social transformation in our Chilean society in the looking and enjoying that picture, as a XXI century. narrative collage (e.g. Denzin, 2001). Beautiful summer dresses, fashionable Writing as a Method of Inquiry high heels, beautiful haircuts and hairstyles, uncommon in a city where students usually In the place where I am (my corridor), I live wear comfortable and casual wear with the the act of writing as a method of inquiry, as a way big word “ILLINOIS” in their shirts and of finding out, understanding language as a consti- wearing the colors of the university (orange tutive force that permits to create a particular view and blue) as if it were a school uniform, of reality and of the Self (Richardson & Adams, since that means not wasting time on what 2005). And at the same time, I am writing as a way to wear each day. of life (Richardson, 2014). I observed how a group of 15 white women with high heels and beautiful dresses with Pamela’s Story different shiny colors were taking pictures in groups. They are organizing themselves In the side of the corridor where I am, I over the railing that is in the front of the am thinking about the walk I took this Quad Cam at UIUC. They are the main morning on campus at UIUC, where I am characters of the white color women painting a postdoctoral visiting scholar and a post at “UIUC Graduation in 2015”. doc in training in the International Institute At the same time but in a place further back of Qualitative Inquiry. In this sunny day of in this scene, in the upstairs area of the the end of semester on campus (may 14th same garden where the stands that target of 2015), I am immersed in an atmosphere the main entrance of the building begin, I of joy and celebration. I could see how the see how another group of around 20 black undergraduate students are celebrating their women enter the scene. They are wearing graduation with their families and friends, the same red dress -as if this color had and I see how their faces look so happy. I the meaning of empowerment for color Critical inquiry as a way to break the glass between “normal” practices in the chilean public academia and the case… 73 women, as a color of their identity, as a a process of encouraging my voice and color that calls for visibility, as a color doing performance autoethnography since of resistance…- they are taking pictures 2011 (e.g. Zapata-Sepúlveda, 2012), if I of them also. This group of women looks were 15 years younger, and this was the different in relation to the first group. This, day of my graduation I would be wearing like a picture of the contemporary history of the red dress… this is not because of a race relation in America (e.g. Denzin, 2002), monolithic race notion behind the black is as a scene of a Hollywood’s movie of a color women, but I feel as a hybrid color ghetto action film cycle (Watkins quoted woman different to the whiteness culture in Denzin 2002). This group of women is in the U.S. using the stairs as their stage for photogra- phy. The space behind the group of white After this walk on campus at UIUC I asked women (the main center place for taking myself if the open policies in higher education pictures). They are smiling and talking are effective or not as I could perceive in the loudly making their presence felt. But they practice in UIUC while thinking about this as the look like graduate students from a different real effort to integrate scholars and students from university, or country, or continent... they different countries to this university.

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