This dissertation is a critical, performative exploration and analysis of mother-son incest as a site for
educational inquiry. Particular attention is given to the sexual abuse of gay males. The text challenges
and re-enacts personal and social perceptions of taboos as spaces of silence, trauma, and
transformation, drawing on discourses of anti-oppressive pedagogy and narratives of healing. My views
of anti-oppressive pedagogy, influenced by Freire, Kumashiro, and others, trouble taboos as personal,
political, and cultural narratives.
This inter/play of texts serves to acknowledge painful histories associated with incest and, on a
conceptual level, to explore secrets, silences and shame around sexual abuse inbedded in cultural
curriculum. Curriculum stems from currere meaning "to run," as in a course, and narrative stems from
narrare meaning to make known. When both terms are juxtaposed they suggest a running from
knowing. What if traumatic sexual abuse histories were placed at the center of pedagogical inquiry?
Presented as a work of fiction, my dissertation is informed by an extensive literature review of motherson
incest. The image of a mother as a perpetrator of sexual abuse is antithetical to mythohistoric
constructions of motherhood. Literature on incest reveals that men are less often viewed as abuse
victims, that gay men experience much higher histories of abuse than heterosexuals, that
homosexuality and early childhood sexual abuse may be correlated, and that both homosexuality and
sexual abuse remain acutely silenced topics in education. All of this generates a lifelong sequelae of
problems for male survivors.
Trauma necessitates a critical and creative reconsideration of educational research as a site of narrative
inquiry and healing. The methodology I employed is mythopoetics presented in the form of a fairy tale
within a play. Drawing on the fairy tale genre's tradition as a vehicle for imparting moral and ethical
messages, the encompassing play creates a forum for dialogue and disruption of the tale. Music, art,
and photographs are integrated into the text to augment the mythopoetic presentation. Mythopoetics
becomes an avenue of make believe and a framework for anti-oppressive pedagogy. If education is
about learning new ways of being and becoming in the world, we need to re/collect difficult subjects in
order to transform lived experiences of learners. / Education, Faculty of / Graduate
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UBC/oai:circle.library.ubc.ca:2429/15866 |
| Date | 05 1900 |
| Creators | Kirkland, Kevin Harvey |
| Source Sets | University of British Columbia |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, Thesis/Dissertation |
| Format | 14573039 bytes, application/pdf |
| Rights | For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use. |
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