Fundamental to a relevant critical consciousness is figuring out how to address the categories question. How do you acknowledge the reality of the history of categories and their impact on those living within the confines of those categories while still understanding that in order to solve the problem inherent in the very existence of those categories we need to move beyond them and their use in our thinking. Personally I think that until the majority of persons have acknowledged the means of creation of categories and their definition by, for the most part, heteronormative, patriarchal, western, upperclass, that trying to move beyond the use of categories denies the history of struggle that was required to get us this far. In short, we're not post category yet, and trying to get there without the healing process, which includes carrying some shame for some groups historically associated with oppressor classes, then it will prevent a true movement beyond the need for categories.

Hey Seth,

Thanks for taking an interest in my review. Sorry I didn't respond sooner. I've been in language immersion all summer. On that note, my English may be a little funny.

I can see how my review might have led you to believe that I think we should be post-category. My actual issue is that Freire's original model deals in an oppressor-oppressed binary. In many situations there are far too many identities being negotiated for that to work and, by not acknowledging the degree of diversity, one can end up focusing on superficialities and oppressing hidden members of fashionable minorities and unfashionable minorities. When folks have gathered from many different communities, it also becomes much harder to assume who is oppressed and who isn't.

A black friend of mine was pushed for the week that we were together to see himself as oppressed, but he'd grown up and identified fairly privileged, and that led to a serious problem later in the week. A transgendered friend was repeatedly identified as a straight white male because of how he came across. There are many more examples of problems that arose because caution was not exercised and superficialities were treated as more primary than the complex of identities underneath them.

If you're interested in reading further, you might try Trifonas' collection of essays by various authors, [i]Pedagogies of Difference[/i] and I've found that in practice it can work to take a little something from Fuller's rankism model. What I saw when working from rankism is that not only were we able to get past superficial reifications of binary oppositions, but we consistently spoke about the categories that did exist and were a concern while negotiating between them.