THEORETICAL AND CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
3.1. A critique of the historic paradigms of knowledge interpretation and knowledge transfer
According to Bussey (2010: 1), education is a function of all cultures and society. However, the modern era has seen education move further away from society and culture, toward a predominant focus on industry and technological production; this is even more accentuated at universities of technology. Knowledge interpretation and the transfer of knowledge and skills, has largely been influenced by positivist ideologies, which served to perpetuate the finite objectives of knowledge to the benefit of industry – product-driven knowledge.
This paradigm also inherently ignored the subjective interpretation and application of knowledge and practice to people in context at a particular time. Within this paradigm, dominant groups benefit both from the curricula in education and the associated wealth gain from the values laden within such; other groups become disadvantaged and therefore vulnerable, both socially and economically (Hoadley & Jansen 2002 in Saidi 2005).
Furthermore, Bernstein in Van Loggernberg (2000:2 in Saidi 2005), affirm that the design of curricula is a construct of the social, economic and political conditions. This confirms the argument that education within a positivist / industrial paradigm is about the control of human potential for the benefit of industry, within which human potentialities for knowledge generation in society are severely compromised.
Architecture is in fact one of the most vital disciplines in the broader developmental context, which transcends the notion of building as product, to the definition of cultural identity, society, politics, economics and the ecological environment. As such, it is argued that industry partnership within architectural learning sites cannot be limited by any product-driven approach; it has to transcend the limits of product and engage more actively with process and all the participants therein. It is therefore necessary to look at alternate theories and ideologies in order to establish whether alternate modes of may be developed to enhance architectural process and production for the holistic development of society. Architectural education, however, has largely lost its profound value as social and cultural asset and has rather become a mode of skills development and industrial production.
Bussey (2010) attributes the shift of education from the social / informal settings to an instrument of the state, to the rise in institutional modernity during the 18th century. He further attests that modernist education is essentially Western and has become a means of globalising
43 | P a g e modernity, wherein the aspirations of humanity and culture is undermined. He refers to this as a paradox at the heart of modern education, as while it achieved many great things, it simultaneously failed to prepare students for a future that asks very different and constantly changing questions of humanity. Bussey further criticises the nature of schooling during the early 19th century where education was a form of social engineering, which focused on skills advancement for the citizenry of industrialising states. This approach was inevitably based on a uniform approach towards the development of specific skills sets for industry, which consequently devalued creativity as a complex expression of intellect, intuition, culture and society. The lack of consideration of the multi-layered complexity of human potentialities has inculcated a totalitarian view of education, which inherently undermines contextual and cultural nuances – the perpetuation of a positivist paradigm in education. Positivist ideologies were generally not human-centred, but rather about the control of humans within ideological frameworks. This has had a negative impact on the quality of architectural production and the built environment, in which the socio-cultural aspirations of people in place are largely ignored.
An ever-widening gap between architecture and society hence emerged.
In the attempt to bridge a widening gap between architectural practice and society, critical theory in architecture had been variously developed and transformed (Panin 2007). Ideological developments of the late 20th century began to question the relevance of positivist control in education; the period in which critical theory started to emerge. Agger (1991) related critical theory to post-structuralism and postmodernism, as strong critiques of positivism, in order to find appropriate and responsive methods of theoretical enquiry and production. Although closely linked to Marxist theory and the Frankfurt School, critical theory sought to explain why the Marxist prophecy of a socialist revolution did not occur, resulting in capitalism remaining as the dominant socio-economic ideology. Within such paradigm, people are conditioned to accept the world as it is, thereby inhibiting thinking of the possibilities of any alternatives (Agger 1991). I argue that both capitalism and Marxism were framed as imposing totalitarian ideologies to control the behaviour of human beings within the socio-economic context. With regard to capitalist ideology, such control manifested as conformity, obedience and discipline;
characteristics which foreshortened the imagination of various alternative possibilities in an advanced technological society.
Jurgen Habermas’ re-conceptualisation of critical theory is relevant as it integrates a range of theoretical and empirical insights that include diverse theoretical and political traditions. His human-centred critical approach intended to shift social theory from the paradigm of
44 | P a g e consciousness towards the paradigm of communication thereby enabling strategies for the critique of ideologies, community building and social movement (Agger 1991). This shift from consciousness to communication suggests a collaborative and interpersonal approach to theories, philosophies and the production of human utilities, which includes the built environment in the context of this research. Furthermore, Habermas clearly distinguishes between reflection/communication and causality/technical rationality as modes of enquiry in theory and practice. This challenges the ideological intrapersonal/intuitive approaches of thinking and production. The result of this is the emergence of a human-centred paradigm, focusing on people who rationally collaborate, discuss alternative social policies and develop consensus about them. The ultimate outcome of such process is the production of things that are of mutually derived value and meaning to society. Modes of interpretation of context, and the respective forming of meaning implies that collective and subjective interpretations are vital to the understanding of narrative, and that meaning cannot therefore be absolute, but rather relative.
While the preceding discussion revealed a general disconnection of education and production from society through positivist approaches, the post-structural concept of deconstruction as posited by Derrida is particularly significant as a counter position to positivist interpretation of texts. Derrida argues that text is un-decidable, as embedded within all texts are subtexts.
According to Derrida deconstructive reading reveals unavoidable and inevitable gaps in meaning that afford readers the opportunity to construct meaning with their own interpolative senses. Reading is therefore active, personal, interpretive and not merely a passive reflection of objective text (Agger 1991) – a vital subject-object tension. Within a post-structuralist framework, therefore, the interpretation of text engages human subjectivity, which implies that meaning can never be definite, nor can it be absolute. This leads to the importance of cultural values and traditions in the interpretation of meaning and value.
While post-structuralism posits a theory of knowledge and language interpretation to understand how meaning is formed and interpreted, postmodernism, on the other hand, establishes a theory of society, culture and history (Agger 1991). This implies that meaning is contextualised beyond individual interpretation and includes the interpersonal negotiated meanings that are derived through social engagement, cultural systems and historical traditions.
The creation and interpretation of meaning therefore emanates from the complex interconnections of various opinions and perspectives. Foucault’s postmodernist philosophy establishes significant and vital connections with the social and cultural nuances of mainstream
45 | P a g e social science. Postmodernism, at a broader level, is therefore based on the rejection of totalising, positivist perspectives. According to Benabib and Keller (in Agger 1991), postmodernism defines social theory that interprets the world from multiple perspectives and therefore also rejects the totalising claims of Marxist grand narratives (Agger 1991). Foucault argued that knowledge be traced to the different discourse or practices that frame the knowledge within them. Like post-structuralism and critical theory, postmodernism posited that knowledge is contextualised by its historical and cultural nature thereby rejecting the notion of a universal social science. According to Agger, particular modes of knowledge are defined by the multiplicity of subject positions taken by different people (Agger 1991).
At the core of the problem of architectural education and practice, especially in the South African context, is a general lack of response to contextual diversity, which this thesis interprets as, fundamentally, an ideological problem. The inclusion of diversity and complexity, wherein the subject-object tensions of interpretation and meaning is greatly expanded, reconstructed and further developed in the critical work and discourses of P.R. Sarkar, philosopher and promulgator of holistic social development through body, mind, intellectual and spiritual balance for the expansion of human potentialities. Bussey (2008) refers to Sarkar (1978: 53) who repeatedly referred to life as an ideological flow. Sarkar’s reference to such, however, was not based on the Marxist or post-structural definition of ideology as a coherent philosophical system, but alternatively regarded ideology as lived ideas that construct the sense of self, purpose and meaning in the journey of life; in this way, the definition of ideology moves away from idealism to pragmatism. Hence, while futurists ask the question: “whose future are you living?” from Sarkar’s perspective, such question would be: “whose ideas are you living?” The determination of the future is therefore directly dependent upon the ideological position of person in society.
The critical position of Sarkar actively challenged hegemonic, dogmatic, power-driven or control-focused ideology by bringing together objective and subjective realities, with humanity at the core. While Sarkar’s position may be related to Humanism, it is different in that he established Neo-humanism as an alternative ideology which is inclusive; builds upon local context while co-existing in the global; wherein person/unit consciousness co-exists with society/collective consciousness – consciousness is therefore not locked within individual person, but extends into the realm of the collective, a significant counterpoint to Habermas’
interpretation. . This positions Neo-humanism in a critical space between East and West; in a space that rejects dualism and totalitarianism for inclusivity. In order to understand Neo-
46 | P a g e humanism, it is necessary to contextualise it against the generally understood Western ideology of Humanism.