The panel brings together work on film pedagogy in 1960s West Germany; indigenous knowledge production in 1980s Nepal; institutional responses to US disability rights legislation since 1977; and the emancipatory possibilities of participatory photography today. Constellating these disparate contexts brings into sharper relief the specific ambitions shaping educational reform, while enabling comparison both of political and practical obstacles to realizing equity and of solutions to overcoming these challenges. While the four papers share certain theoretical touchstones (Freire, hooks), they also explore new frameworks for conceptualizing resourceful responses to a contemporary moment when education and access are under unprecedented attack.
The first paper, “Between Reform and Revolt: Film Education at the Ulm School for Design, 1962-1968,” co-presented by Hester Baer and Angelica Fenner, is part of a larger work examining the first institutional locus of film training in West Germany. The radical pedagogical model developed there proved crucial for the emergence of the West German feminist film project, one of the most sustained and significant instances of feminist countercinema worldwide. Three influential feminist directors trained at Ulm: Ula Stöckl, Claudia von Alemann, and Jeanine Meerapfel. Drawing on archival research and filmmaker interviews, this paper demonstrates how the Ulm pedagogy underpinned their experimentation with novel visual and aesthetic forms for investigating and representing relational structures of power.
The second paper, “Aama Samuha: Knowledge Production in the Indigenous Gurung Community,” by Menuka Gurung, examines non-extractive knowledge creation and sharing in the 1980s indigenous Gurung community in the Annapurna region of western Nepal. Local women’s organizations, known as Aama Samuha (mother’s groups) were modelled on a tradition of close-knit, collectivist social structures that developed in response to the absence of working-age men from villages during service in the British Army. The Nepali government’s more recent designation of the Gurung as part of the Annapurna Conservation Area Project inspired a concerted focus on preserving local indigenous cultures in the face of eco-tourism. Now widespread across Nepal, Aama Samuha model a community-based pedagogy thriving outside of formal frameworks that inspires possibilities for collaboration with and transformation of institutional modes of learning.
In the third paper, “In from the Margins: Disability, DEI, and Dead Pedagogy,” David Gooblar considers how the 1977 approval of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act paved the way for large numbers of students with disabilities to enter US universities. Faced with a federal mandate that different learning needs not prevent this population from obtaining education, administrators chose to leave the center of their institutions—the classroom—alone and instead make changes at the margins, creating disability services offices and an accommodations system that promised not to alter pedagogy. A similar dynamic characterized the birth of DEI offices: rather than reform education, institutions created bureaucratic structures at the periphery, making diversity an administrative specialization. Gooblar explores how instructors can bring the needs of vulnerable students from the margins into the center of institutions, arguing that it requires discarding dead pedagogies—unexamined teaching practices tailored to an imaginary student body—and instead teaching as if students’ lives depend on it.
The final paper, “The Radical Pedagogy of Photovoice,” by Renuka Khatiwada, argues that the participatory photography platform Photovoice can serve as a transformative pedagogical tool for promoting critical consciousness of gendered oppression. Unlike traditional research methods that rely on pen and paper, Photovoice empowers participants—particularly marginalized women—to visually document and express their realities and thereby challenge dominant narratives. Khatiwada highlights how women develop agency by taking on roles as co-researchers and photographers. By discussing the meaning behind their photographs, participants challenge patriarchal norms and center experiential knowledge. Photovoice democratizes knowledge production, destabilizes traditional power dynamics, and positions participants as both researchers and subjects of inquiry.
We have chosen to include four papers in this panel in order to foster a transhistorical, transnational, and multidisciplinary approach to the topic; this diversity is complemented by the inclusion of presenters from varied ranks and institutions. Each presentation will be limited to 12 minutes in order to ensure that sufficient time remains for a comparative discussion that also incorporates audience perspectives.