Beyond Dualism: Toward a Dialogic Negotiation of Difference

Abstract

In this article I explore the development of a critical pedagogy that interrogates commonly held assumptions about identity and culture in social, political, and historical perceptions of cultural difference. I attempt to deconstruct dichotomizing tendencies of thinking about differences, with the aim to position thinking in the borderland or on the fault line between cultures, a third space in which to live critically. I examine perspectives of critical consciousness, third-space positionings, and dialogic negotiations of differences through the lenses of feminist theory, narrative enquiry, and literary theory to suggest how these perspectives may lead to cross-cultural identifications or understandings in postsecondary classrooms. The responsibility for the tracing of the other within self is seen as central to teaching practice, in order to live, as T. Minh-ha Trinh (1989b) states: fearlessly with and within difference(s) (p. 84).