Professor Judith Suissa (Institute of Education, University College London)

Date: Wednesday 10th May 2017

Time: 1 - 2.30pm

Judith's talk will be funded by the Philosophy of education society of Great Britain
We are currently facing the worst crisis of forced displacement since World War II, with the UN estimating the number of displaced people worldwide at over 65 million. In the context of debates over the responsibilities of Western states towards asylum seekers and refugees and, connectedly, the resurgence of forms of ethnic nationalism, there are serious educational questions to be asked. These involve not only practical questions about what schools can and should be doing to accommodate children from refugee and immigrant communities, but also how, in the context of citizenship or political education lessons, teachers should be addressing questions of nationality, belonging, statehood, citizenship, and human rights.
Questions about the extent to which it is desirable and legitimate to teach patriotism and whether and how forms of national identity are compatible with the aims of education in a liberal democratic state have long been the subject of rigorous debate within liberal political philosophy and philosophy of education (see e.g. Archard, 1999; Callan, 2006; Enslin, 1994; Galston, 1991; Hand, 2011; White, 1996).
In the wake of the recent EU Referendum in Britain, where narratives of patriotism, nationalism and belonging have been articulated in the media and in popular debate, it seems important to revisit these debates. In the following discussion, I propose to do this through a focus on the notion of “home”. My motivation for doing so is not just a sense that perhaps there is a lot more to be said, philosophically, about the complex significance of "home", but also a concern with the ways in which a particular notion of the home and being at home has been employed within current political debates. Specifically, I want to explore how the idea of not being at home has been pathologised.