Abstract:
Schools are massively regulated spaces. Much of this occurs around sex and gender, directly in relation to what might be seen as educational matters (e.g., curriculum), at interfaces between social administration (‘governmentality’, e.g., reporting of truancy) and educational concerns such as equity (e.g., reporting of outcomes), and to administration (e.g., building standards’ requirements for toilets). This paper examines several examples of the regulation of sex and gender to explore connections between the details of regulatory practice, and gender-related violence. We tie our analysis of regulation to the broader frameworks of sex and gender classification that operate across all domains and levels of government, in particular as they are established by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS 1999).
We use concepts of discourse, power/knowledge, and biopower (Foucault 1972, 1981, 2009), to explore the structure of these classificatory categories, their deployment in administrative practice in educational systems and their effects on the lives of those within them. We argue that they can be seen as ontoformative – “social practice[s that] continuously bring social reality into being” -- (Connell 2012, 866). In doing so it is profoundly educative, shaping people’s capacities to know and act on and in the world. Further, we argue that this erases the experience of many (Bauer et al. 2009), in ways that constitute violence against them, and forms the basis for other forms of violence against them (Spade 2011). We suggest that both the categories themselves are problematic and open to re-constitution and that at least many of the deployments of these categories are strictly unnecessary even for the administrative purposes which ostensibly provide their rationale, and serve principally to maintain the dominant sex/gender order.
References
Australian Bureau of Statistics [ABS]. (1999). Demographic Variables: Sex. Canberra: ABS.
Bauer, G. R., Hammond, R., Travers, R., Kaay, M., Hohenadel, K. M., & Boyce, M. (2009). "I don't think this is theoretical; this is our lives": how erasure impacts health care for transgender people. The Journal of the Association of Nurses in AIDS Care : JANAC, 20 (5), 348-361.
Connell, R. (2012). Transsexual women and feminist thought: toward new understanding and new politics. Signs, 37 (4), 857-881.
Foucault, M. (1972). The Archaeology of Knowledge. London: Tavistock.
Foucault, M. (1981). “The Order of Discourse”, in R. Young (Ed.), Untying the text: A post-structuralist reader. Boston: Routledge.
Foucault, M. (2009). Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the College de France 1977-1978 (Vol. 4). London: Picador.
Spade, D. (2011). Normal life: Administrative violence, critical trans politics, and the limits of law. Brooklyn: South End Press.
We use concepts of discourse, power/knowledge, and biopower (Foucault 1972, 1981, 2009), to explore the structure of these classificatory categories, their deployment in administrative practice in educational systems and their effects on the lives of those within them. We argue that they can be seen as ontoformative – “social practice[s that] continuously bring social reality into being” -- (Connell 2012, 866). In doing so it is profoundly educative, shaping people’s capacities to know and act on and in the world. Further, we argue that this erases the experience of many (Bauer et al. 2009), in ways that constitute violence against them, and forms the basis for other forms of violence against them (Spade 2011). We suggest that both the categories themselves are problematic and open to re-constitution and that at least many of the deployments of these categories are strictly unnecessary even for the administrative purposes which ostensibly provide their rationale, and serve principally to maintain the dominant sex/gender order.
References
Australian Bureau of Statistics [ABS]. (1999). Demographic Variables: Sex. Canberra: ABS.
Bauer, G. R., Hammond, R., Travers, R., Kaay, M., Hohenadel, K. M., & Boyce, M. (2009). "I don't think this is theoretical; this is our lives": how erasure impacts health care for transgender people. The Journal of the Association of Nurses in AIDS Care : JANAC, 20 (5), 348-361.
Connell, R. (2012). Transsexual women and feminist thought: toward new understanding and new politics. Signs, 37 (4), 857-881.
Foucault, M. (1972). The Archaeology of Knowledge. London: Tavistock.
Foucault, M. (1981). “The Order of Discourse”, in R. Young (Ed.), Untying the text: A post-structuralist reader. Boston: Routledge.
Foucault, M. (2009). Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the College de France 1977-1978 (Vol. 4). London: Picador.
Spade, D. (2011). Normal life: Administrative violence, critical trans politics, and the limits of law. Brooklyn: South End Press.