Theory is not inherently healing, liberatory, or revolutionary. It fulfills this function only when we ask that it do so and direct our theorizing towards this end.
bell hooks Theory as Liberatory Practice
Abstract
In this rejoinder, I comment on how going through the activity of participating in this forum and of engaging in dialogue with my commentators makes sense at several levels—most importantly, at the personal and the conceptual—and how these two levels are intricately connected. The link between the personal and conceptual (cognition and emotion)—their de facto unity—is highlighted through a discussion of a theoretical stance that has to do with ineluctable dialogicality of any and all aspects, incarnations, and expressions of human development, being, and learning. The dialogicality of knowing comes to the fore if knowledge is understood as being part and parcel of ongoing real life activities out in the world imbued with ideology, values, and commitments. In this stance, knowing and acting, words and deeds, theory and practice cannot be ever thought of as separate realms; instead they inevitably and necessarily appear as belonging together and as forming inherent aspects (or dimensions) of one and the same process of people collaboratively engaging with and transforming the world.
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Stetsenko, A. Collaboration and cogenerativity: on bridging the gaps separating theory-practice and cognition-emotion. Cult Stud of Sci Educ 3, 521–533 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11422-008-9123-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11422-008-9123-z