The interpellation of the refugee: between Critical Pedagogy and ideological dispositives of subjectivation


Abstract:

The contribution, from a critical pedagogy perspective, addresses the structural and contradictory tension (Althusser, 2008) that emerges in contexts of forced migration, particularly concerning individuals normatively defined as political refugees. This definition carries implicit meanings, as it evokes a condition of vulnerability, need for help, and protection. This reveals the presence of an implicit dispositive (Massa, 1986) that reifies subaltern relations, in which law and institutions function as ideological apparatuses, interpellating the refugee (Althusser, 1997) as an existence to be administered and managed (Agamben, 1995-2015; Balibar, 2019), thereby naturalizing their exclusion (Balibar, 2012). Tolerance, in this framework, is not a principle of recognition but rather a masked exclusionary dispositive, which accepts the other only insofar as they remain in a subordinate position (Bianchi, D’Antone, 2024). This underscores the need to establish educational settings (Dozza, 2000) capable of problematizing resistance, understood both as opposition to authority and reluctance to change, in order to promote genuine spaces of encounter (Giroux, 2022) and avoid practices of pedagogical colonization (Bianchi, 2019).