4. Critical Reflection in Action

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In ‘the thick of the action’ a space to pause can feel like an inaccessible privilege (Schön 1983, p.277). 

In the margins of a life of caregiving (Jones, 2024) I have found surprising solace within this PGCert.
A place to stop momentarily, to question and be questioned. And I am grateful. 

This final report is about Care.  

1.

The work of care 

My life is rooted in the practice of care. The teachings of Robin Wall Kimmerer and Adrienne Maree Brown help me articulate and embody this at UAL. Yet I am aware that my positionality as a white and able-bodied woman limits the dimensions in which I am seeing what care is for everyone (Ware, 2015). My PGCert colleagues encouraged me critique how the language of care can be misused to distract from careless actions (Frosh and Georgiu, 2020). They showed me Helena Reckett’s work, and we spoke about how care can feel – for many – like insufferable heaviness.  

“To care can feel good; it can also feel awful. It can do good; it can oppress... But what is care? Is it an affection? A moral obligation? Work? A burden? A joy?”  
(Puig de la Casa, 2017) 

I am also questioning how disability justice intersects with our students’ relationship to care (Sins Invalid, 2005). As I critique the ableist assumptions I have made in the past – waiting for new students to openly share their access needs, rather than creating space for all bodies and minds to flourish without explanation (Brown, 2023).  

This report aims to explore how building a more intentional and collective culture of care within our course could reduce interpersonal conflict and increase inclusion.

2.

Who Cares  

Recently we experienced instances of bullying, transphobia, and racism by a small number of our students. My line manager was shocked by my shock: why did you assume this wouldn’t happen on your course Ella? And this question stayed with me. 

Why did I assume – when racial harassment is experienced by 13% of all students at universities across UK (EHRC report, 2019) and 42% of LGBTQ+ students (Stonewall report, 2017) hide their identity at university for fear of discrimination.

Many of our students did not know what Protected Characteristics were, and none of them had read the UAL Disciplinary Code for Students.  

On average 85% of our students are international, from diverse social-economic / educational backgrounds, faiths, with different relationships to health, neurodiversity and love. We have students openly discussing their intersectional identities with pride, and students clearly uncomfortable/unfamiliar with discussions on intersectionality. 

My white British privilege led me to underestimate the complex intersecting realities of students’ as they start this course. We don’t start with a shared ‘care language’ (UAL student comms certainly doesn’t always role model it) and this affects the development of an emotionally safe course culture. The collective care web is missing (Piepzna-Samarasinha, 2018). 

In response – with Anna Schlimm – we made a course Theory of Change, then designed an experimental methodology which aimed to:

_ hold space / permission for safe emotional conversation
_ encourage students to listen to and share intersectional realities earlier in the course
_ nip interpersonal issues in the bud sooner
_ practice methods of emotional repair and apology

Taking inspiration from Restorative Justice, Nonviolent Communication and Abolitionist Futures.

3.

Care Wash   

“The harshest of lights shines on the question of care in the age of neo-liberalism and globalisation: who gets it, who needs it, who does it, who controls it.”  
(Blackshaw and Kivland, 2021) 

We designed an ‘Emotional Launderette’. Inspired by Nora Heidorn’s work in CARE(LESS) and the Feminist Health Care Research Group, we built on from this idea of ‘Care labels’ for self and others.  

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Creative metaphors can be used pedagogically to support inclusive teaching (Herranz-Hernández and Naranjo-Crespo, 2023). They can help us find a shared understanding – across divides – within some universal codes / rules / structures.

The Launderette appears within many cultural narratives as a place of encounter, waiting, sounds / smells, starting-a-fresh. We explored how these known structures could help us host more challenging or ‘unknown’ conversations.  

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With my PGCert tutor, we also discussed the significance of the mundane. Washing your clothes is an act of continuous maintenance. And we want the emotional work of relational care and repair to become an every-day practice. 

We also felt that by hosting a performative space for our students, we signal permission to play / glow / find mischief together. We take seriously the radical role of joy in amongst this context of global suffering (Intersectional Environmentalist, 2024).   

Care Repair Tools

1 . The individual Care Label : for personal reflection on needs, triggers, care languages and capacity (Anna developed) 

7.

2 . The Collective Care cards : for collective reflection on emergent group needs and collective care policies for the course (Ella developed) 
[more information here]

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3. The Dirty Washing Basket – for anonymous grievances

10.

4. The Washing Line – for visualising what’s been dealt with / washed out / repaired

11.

We shared the experience with colleagues and PGCert feedback groups. We also asked six students to visit our Launderette and test the tools for an afternoon [feedback notes here]. This resulted in the creation of a Collective Care Policy map. 

These students came from five different countries. All with intersecting identities related to mental health, neurodiversity, gender and race*.

12.

Our learning 

The privilege of knowing oneself  

“Where I come from in India, they’d be like ‘What needs? We don’t have any needs!’… this course is a journey of self-discovery, but it takes time”   

13.

We have students from countries where collective cultures don’t centre individual identities. Financial privilege and gender also play a role here. I know students who’ve brought up alongside the gendered belief that their needs mattered less than other peoples’. Students from cultures or families where emotions have been validated might have a language for their needs. Learning from Jaclyn Rekis‘s work on epistemic injustice – students who have experienced racial or religious discrimination might feel additionally unsafe sharing within an unfamiliar community.

“It took me a while on this course to open up about who I really am”  

Launderette learning  

  • Intersecting challenges of gender / race / financial privilege / neurodiversity affect how we express personal needs 
  • Reduce questions to: “I feel cared for when… I show care by…” 
  • Let this emerge overtime in parallel with course learning  
  • Revisit every few months – has understanding of ourselves expanded since start? 
  • Privacy – Rethink where we keep them and who has access. 

Fear of being wrong

“At the beginning I would have tried to write what I thought you wanted me to say… these questions make me feel like I could get this wrong…” 

14.

Rather than seeing ambiguity as a space to play, all students expressed a fear of misinterpretation and ‘failure’. It felt unsafe. My team frequently see this anxiety on our course. Students are conditioned to ‘succeed’ through a lifetime of assessment and grading. Conditioned therefore to doubt themselves, place less value on their intuition, and feel limited by external judgments (Addison, 2014). Again this is intersectional. We have students who have felt obligated to graft and prove their worth as women, or people of colour. We discussed the need for unlearning and liberation – inspired by Designs of the Oppressed (design & opressão, 2021). 

“We actually don’t know our disability when we start here, in my country it doesn’t exist” 

Launderette learning 

  • Don’t start with individual tool – start with cards that facilitate collective discussion  
  • Individual Care Labels after a group conversation  
  • Remove long quotes to ensure there is no indication of a right or wrong interpretation 
  • Make more accessible for neurodivergent students by creating a visualised examples of tools and inviting students to re-write in a language that works for them  

Trust evolves through experience  

“I might be thinking – Should I write that I have anxiety? who can I trust with this?”  

15.

As I learnt in blog 2, students arrive holding different value systems, beliefs and faiths. When our core values are challenged, we might feel unsafe or excluded (racial harassment report, 2019). I can see from past experiences that feelings of trust and safety evolve over time, and I was encouraged by feedback on the significance of the personal growth and transformation on this MA.

I am also reflecting a UAL talk by Amita Nijhawan – ‘How to talk about race with your students’ – where she explained how students don’t trust our words alone, they trust our actions. 

High trust – therefore – won’t be built in a day.

Launderette learning 

  • See all this as a living document, returned to every few months as part of a personal conversation about growth and development  
  • Create anonymous Dirty Laundry and Drying Line to keep the conversation about accountability and repair continuous / visible / evolving 

Careclusion  

As a result of this work we will reshape the first 2 weeks of our MA in September 2024. We will open an iterated version of the Emotional Launderette where students can shape the way care is spoken about and understood practically from the beginning.  

The Collective Care Policies Map is now being used to underpin the curriculum for Term One.  We learnt that these policies could become very practical with the right prompts, facilitation, and exemplars.

16.

The Launderette has helped me see how creativity and love can shift a narrative during what has been an very emotionally challenging time. 

I see this now as a germination process. Holding Care firmly and tenderly at the start and letting it grow overtime through affirming moments within our course community.

I have a lot of trust in our students and our course, so let’s see. 

Thank you for reading. 


Words 1504

*the students involved in the testing were not involved in the interpersonal issues mentioned above.

Massive thank yous to Anna Schlimm, Beth Bramich, Nicholas Dunn and Annabel Crowley.
And to our wonderful students who inspired this work, and then went on to make it better.

Image credits:

  1. Some of the books and readings I used to underpin the development of the Needs Cards
  2. Our students on their last day of term this summer July 2024
  3. Screen grab from https://abolitionistfutures.com/
  4. Extract from Nora Heidorn’s work in CARE(LESS)
  5. Extract from Feminist Health Care Research Group – Practicing Radical Health Care
  6. A very sample of the many many different stills from movies and music videos which have featured Launderettes:
    Glasgow famous laundrette in Finnieston which has featured in music videos, hosted raves, and photoshoots // Image from the stage show of My Beautiful Launderette with National Theatre // Still from film My Beautiful Launderette (1985) // Still from Blind Side (2009) // In the Valley of Elah (2007) // Rosemary’s Baby (1968) // Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) // Tales of the unusual washing machine (2022) // Anthony Sawyers – Clean Clothes music video // Mysie Reveals – Single ‘Bones’
  7. Care Label instructions – made by Anna Schlimm
  8. Care Needs instructions – made by Ella Britton
  9. Images of some of the cards and instructions for alternative use
  10. Testing idea for the Dirty Washing basket
  11. Testing Washing Line idea
  12. Close up of ‘Growth’ card
  13. Student helping us test the Launderette tools
  14. Student notes against Launderette tools
  15. Student helping us test the Launderette tools
  16. Collective Care Policies made for the course within the workshop

Sources of knowledges and inspiration:

  1. Schön, D.A (1983). The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action. New York: Basic Books 
  2. Jones, L. (2023) Matrescence: On the Metamorphosis of Pregnancy, Childbirth and Motherhood. Penguin Books Limited
  3. Kimmerer, R.W. (2013). Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants. Milkweed Editions.
  4. brown, a.m. (2017) Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds. AK Press
  5. Ware. V. (2015), Beyond the Pale: White Women, Racism and History, London: Verso
  6. Chatzidakis, A., & Littler, J. (2022). An anatomy of carewashing: Corporate branding and the commodification of care during Covid-19. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 25(3-4), 268-286. https://doi.org/10.1177/13678779211065474 
  7. Puig de la Casa, M. (2017) ‘Introduction: The Disruptive Thought of Care’, Matters of Care: Speculative Ethics in More than Human Worlds, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press
  8. SinsInvalid : https://www.sinsinvalid.org/
  9. Chay Brown interview : Intersectionality in Focus: Empowering Voices during UK Disability History Month 2023
  10. Tackling racial harassment: Universities challenged. 2019 Equality and Human Rights Commission
  11. Chaka L. Bachmann from Stonewall and Becca Gooch from YouGov, LGBT in Higher Education (2017)
  12. Blackshaw. G & Kivland, S (eds), Care(less). A Supplement To On Care (2020 / 2021) 
  13. Heidorn, N. (2021) Care(less). A Supplement To On Care. page 47
  14. Feminist Health Care Research Group http://www.feministische-recherchegruppe.org/resources.html 
  15. Herranz-Hernández, P.; Naranjo-Crespo, M. Teaching Inclusive Thinking through an Embodied Metaphor: A Developmental Study. Soc. Sci. 2023, 12, 267. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci12050267 
  16. Joy Report – https://intersectionalenvironmentalist.com/the-joy-report#:~:text=The%20Joy%20Report%20is%20a,grounded%20in%20intersectionality%20and%20optimism. 
  17. Piepzna-Samarasinha, L. (2018) Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice. Arsenal Pulp Press
  18. Addison, N.. (2014). Doubting Learning: Outcomes in Higher Education Contexts: from Performativity towards Emergence and Negotiation
  19. Rekis, J. Religious Identity and Epistemic Injustice: An Intersectional Account. Cambridge University Press. (2023)
  20. VAN AMSTEL, Frederick M. C.; BATISTA, Sâmia ; SERPA, Bibiana O. ; MAZZAROTTO, Marco ; CARVALHO, Ricardo Artur P. ; GONZATTO, Rodrigo Freese . Insurgent Design Coalitions: The history of the Design & Oppression network. In: II PIVOT 2021 Virtual Conference, 2021, London, UK (Online). Proceedings of the II PIVOT 2021 Virtual Conference. London, UK: Design Research Society (DRS), 2021. p. 167-182. https://doi.org/10.21606/pluriversal.2021.0018 
  21. Amita Nijhawan at UAL, Oct 2023, ‘How to talk about race with your students’