Original Articles

Building a teaching praxis in Anthropology: critical pedagogy in action

Published in: Anthropology Southern Africa
Volume 30 , issue 3-4 : Debating Southern African Anthropology , 2007 , pages: 111–118

DOI: 10.1080/23323256.2007.11499954

Author(s): Joy Owen Department of Anthropology,

Keywords: Critical pedagogy , student-centred , South African anthropology , reflexivity , teaching praxis

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Abstract

The following paper reflects on a course entitled ‘Power and Wealth’ that I developed and have been teaching since 2004. I consider the course in light of my own understanding of critical pedagogy as informed by Paulo Freire and Ira Shor. I discuss the importance of student-centred learning and the possibility of teaching through a single ethnographic encounter—what I refer to as the township walk. The paper does not pretend to stimulate educational theory at this point. Rather I attempt to raise a number of discussion points pertinent to the teaching of the discipline within southern Africa and to initiate a critical consideration of our relevance as a discipline in the southern African and African contexts. In this way, I imply that a conscious and nuanced teaching of the discipline, could inform the manner in which we re-create it in a rapidly changing global political economy.

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