Safe Spaces Human Rights Education in Diverse Contexts

DISCOURSE, BETRAYAL, CRITIQUE
regularity” (ibid). Such regularity of patterns and utterances are key features of
HRE. Thus, HRE is not simply explored as ‘textual expressions or a semiological
system’ 7 , but as a discourse constituted by social practices and relations. Most
aptly articulated by Laclau and Mouffe (1985) as an “articulatory practice which
constitute and organizes social relations” (ibid:103), discourse itself “is fully
constitutive of our world” (Phillips & Jørgensen, 2002:19). Fairclough 8 is generally
viewed as subscribing to the semiological approach to discourse analysis.
However, as reflected in the following passage, he has, to my mind, a much
broader view of discourse than sometimes depicted in textbooks.
I adopt a position of ‘analytical dualism’ which applies to discourse as well
as to other elements of the social, which regards ‘discourse’ as subsuming
both linguistic/semiotic elements of social events and linguistic/semiotic
facets of social structures, as well as of the ‘social practices’ which … I see
as mediating the relationship between events and structures (ibid:916).
Moving beyond a definition of discourse as “language in use” (Taylor & Yates,
Wetherill, 2002:3) or “text in context” (Titscher, Meyer, Wodak & Vetter, 2000:26), I
adopt Howarth’s (2002) and Torfing’s (1999) line of reasoning that discourse
includes all social practices, of which human rights activities are principal
examples. Admittedly, the meaning of discourse and the application of discourse
analysis is abstruse. For this reason Torfing’s (1999:40) richly interlaced notion of
discourse is encouraging.
Let us start by invoking Derrida’s definition of discourse as a differential
system in which the absence of the transcendental signified, in terms of a
privileged centre, extends the play of signification infinitely. This definition
emphasizes the moment of unfixity in the construction of meaning. Discourse
can thus be defined as a decentred structure in which meaning is constantly
negotiated and constructed (Laclau, 1988:254). This broad conception of
discourse in terms of an ensemble of signifying sequences allows for the
inclusion of both physical objects and social practices as meaningful parts of
discourse.
With this inclusive understanding, we can now move on to two complementary
concepts in the constitution of ‘discourse’. Undoubtedly, the notions of ideology and
hegemony are central to discourse. Ideology, in this paper, refers to constructions of
meaning aimed at maintaining asymmetrical power-relations. Simply put, it is
‘meaning in the service of power’ (Fairclough, 1995:14) 9 . Partly through ideology a
discourse can become hegemonic where hegemony is “defined as the expansion of a
discourse or set of discourses, into a dominant horizon of social orientation and
action […]” (Torfing, 1999:101). Consequently, I treat human rights both as
ideological and hegemonic. HRE, in this schema, is a tactical, articulatory practice
where articulation is “the construction of nodal points which partially fix meaning”
(Laclau & Mouffe, 1985:113; see Howarth, 2002:102). The legitimacy and
hegemony of human rights are in part arrived at by an educational form that
constructs nodal points of reference. Obviously, there are broader factors that impact
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