Skye Nancy Maule-O'Brien
This project looks at what centering intimacy in learning can bring to racial justice and decolonial practices. The site of study is the shared colonial histories and knowledges between the Caribbean and Canada. It asks: can an intimate pedagogy help us transgress divisionary boundaries to produce transformative outcomes of accountability to ourselves, each other, and the planet? To explore this question, I draw on Caribbean and Black feminisms, with elements of queer theory beginning with the work of Ian Barnard (2004) and Sharon Patricia Holland (2012), and decolonial feminist scholarship, including Indigenous feminism and ecofeminist critique. Audre Lorde’s (1984) theory of the erotic is a foundational pillar in defining what intimacy can do inside a pedagogical practice. Using visual methods, I look at the work of visual artists to study the intangible matters of intimacy that escape language in how we understand learning and knowledge. Through three case studies, that include interviews with three artists―Michèle Pearson Clarke (Toronto), Annalee Davis (Barbados), and Nadia Huggins (St. Vincent)―and autoethnographic narratives and photographs, I consider how theory, the visual and sensorial, and embodiments of knowledge impact how we learn together and create change. Through the work of Davis I explore how ghostly colonial matters held in the land can teach us about reparative learning in post/decolonial life. I then offer a queer Caribbean reading of the sea as a space of instability through the work of Huggins to find examples of transformative healing and learning. Finally, questioning my own body as a white researcher, I look at the potential learning offered through resistance and refusals of intimacy through the work of Clarke. I conclude with a summary of the forms of intimate learning that emerged through the research and an interrogation of the human/non-human divide to argue for a relational framing to social justice and race work. The principal contribution of this research is the introduction of the concept of intimate pedagogy. I define intimate pedagogy as the learning that happens with others in intimate moments, but also the learning that comes from the relationship we have with ourselves and the intimacy we create with knowledge. Intimate pedagogy prioritizes the understanding of relational life and opens sites for different transformative possibilities with others. It offers a tool to transcend hard disciplinary and interpersonal boundaries in studies of race and decoloniality.
Keywords: intimate, pedagogy, erotic, race, decolonial, feminism
Dr. Chloë Brushwood Rose, your intellectual guidance, positive encouragement, and unbelievable patience are unmeasurable. Your belief in me and the research was unwavering throughout this process, and I continually left our meetings with renewed levels of energy and clarity to see this project through. While the closing of this degree brings joy and thanks, it also brings pangs of sadness knowing I will miss your regular presence in my life. Thank you, a million times over for supervising this research and pushing me where and when I needed it.
Michèle Pearson Clarke, Annalee Davis, and Nadia Huggins, you generously opened your homes and shared your artistic processes with me, allowing the research to come into being. Thank you for letting me exercise intimate learning with each of your practices and the knowledge you create.
Dr. Ian Barnard, thank you for answering my (fan) email and agreeing to meet me for a coffee to discuss my interest in your writing. Your germinal text, openness, generosity, and warmth created a foundation for my work to grow into its own. It has truly been an honour having you as a member of my committee. I look forward to the next time we are in the same place and can share a coffee.
Dr. Amar Wahab, I was instantly drawn to your radiance and humour when I was a TA in GWST. You brought a level of questioning to my work that I couldn’t have gotten to on my own. Thank you for your book recommendations and for encouraging me to look at the failures of intimacy as a generative place.
G, you are seriously the BEST! You influenced this work in so many ways; it would be impossible to trace. Your presence is palpable in many of the chapters, and this project would never be what it is if we hadn’t met at the perfect time. Thank you for sharing your amazingness with me daily and taking such good care of us!
Mum & Dad, you created a home with a deep foundation of love where I could fully be myself and be confident to take risks. You are my golden cards I was lucky enough to be dealt. Thank you for always encouraging me, keeping me in check, and making me laugh until I cry.
Mark and Michelle, I wrote this dissertation thinking of you both as my readers. Thank you for always being there to engage with my writing, my half-formed ideas, and my intense feelings. Michelle, you were always up for a deep chat to dig through the debris and help me clarify my thoughts. Mark(y), I know you get it. Thank you for being the sharp and generous copy editor you are and for teaching me the difference between continuous and continual, continually. Thank you both for your friendship that spans oceans and time.
Karen, I’m so glad we had the same pencil case on our first day of PhD school. Without our friendship I don’t know if I would have had the courage to write some of the more challenging, haunting, pieces of my journey. Thank you for sharing your history with me, and for letting me share mine with you.
York University, you seemed a billion miles away, but once I was there, I always felt a sense of belonging―like a teenager at the local mall. The GWST team: Sue, Celeta, Lindsay, and Kristine, it was such a pleasure teaching in the department. The Write Stuff: Jacq, Jenna, and Stephanie, helping me cast spells until the last edit. Dr. Shawnee, you finished first and inspired me to keep at it! Dawn, you helped me better understand my body as a source of knowledge. Cuzmo Chelsea (my best cousin friend) & David, Rebekka & Michael, Sameer, erica, Shara, Cisco, Anthony & Cheron, Willie, Devon & Jeff, Judy, Natasha & Jeremy, the Golds, Koreatown―you all kept me eating, laughing, and dancing through my Toronto years.
Vincia (Vv): my warmest bridge between Toronto and Montreal. My love is wider than Victoria Lake, taller than the Empire State, it ripples like the deepest ocean. Maya: I wanna turn you on, turn you out, all night long, make you shout! Sheena: my life changed the day you showed me your painted CDs. Farah & Ali, Luigi & Stuff, Nouna Nadine & Ainoi, Isaboo, Melissa, Daniel, Karen & Lee, Ed, Stefanie & Raur, Nydia, Roxanne & Donzel, Heather (Eder), and Louiseee— my BIG Montreal friend-family, I truly adore you until the end of time. Concordia University and Arpi, you saw me with a PhD even before I imagined myself doing one. Montreal, with your royal mountain: queen of cities.
Aunty Sheighna (Sheeny), Emmaleigh & Adam, Dad-Robert, Maya & Dan, Claudia & Thanas: my diamond and pearl. Ottawa: you’re a bit boring but you taught me so much and I love your beautiful waterways.
Sara & Penny, Pat & the Pussy Palace, Julianna, Romina, the Griffith Observatory, Echo Park & Martin, the West Hollywood pool & library. My winter in Los Angeles was warm and full of life.
Dr. Kamala Kempadoo, your seminar on Black Radical Thought enriched my understanding of global theoretical linkages and your support enabled my academic exchange with Institute for Gender & Development Studies: Nita Barrow Unit, The University of the West Indies, Cave Hill.
Joyce & Robert, the garden & Mew, Nas & Eion, Vic, the Graduate Studies building at UWI Cave Hill & the napping students, Ti & Saltwater Swimmers. Pebbles Beach & Brownes Beach—it was in Barbados where I learned the beginnings of how to read the sea and trust the swells with my body.
Ellen & Tushith, Lukesh, Iniyan (& Gucci), my Montreal family in Rotterdam, thank you for helping us cross the ocean. Here the clouds, water, and wind move differently, and the light stretches further, showing me things I couldn’t see before. Mirjam, Marjolijn, Linda, small-face cat that lives downstairs, the magical poplar tree, Tender Center, Ghost, and WdKA—my new people in the Netherlands. Clara, our talk on bloodletting helped me finish the conclusion.
The otherworldly: Gran & Papa, Aunty Cara-Lyn, Uncle Brian, Lily, Ebony, and Robert. My ancestors and ghostly matters. You are sometimes my most challenging teachers, but you make sure I recognize the gifts I’m given, and I don’t forget your lessons.
Thank you to all my friends, family, neighbours, and places that housed, fed, held, and challenged me throughout this research. My heart and life are so unbelievably full. I’m so thankful to be on the planet at the same time as you all. You are my intimate pedagogy.