Tomar la palabra y conquistar tiempo libre: entrevista con Jacques Rancière

Abstract

This interview, given in February 2021, explores the links between Jacques Rancière’s thought and the philosophy of education. Initially, Rancière addresses some aspects of his intellectual trajectory, his relationship with the events of May 68 and his research in workers’ archives, which nurtured the fabric of books such as The nights of labor and led him to break with Louis Althusser’s assumptions on the relations between knowledge and politics. Then, Rancière analyzes the reception of The ignorant schoolmaster, which is, according to him, marked by mistaken readings that associate it either to a book about the history of pedagogical thought or to a methodology to be applied. Both readings ignore Joseph Jacotot’s conception of intellectual emancipation and Rancière’s view of the relations between theory and practice. In the discussion on the article “School, production, equality”, his only text mainly dedicated to what he calls school-form, the philosopher highlights the importance of the different notions of temporality in his thought and questions the school’s ability to promote equality and free time (skholè) today, as it has become the finalized institution by excellence, increasingly closer to the logics of hierarchy and inequality. In the end, the dialogue addresses a theme related to the present: the rise of the extreme right in countries like Brazil and the United States of America, marked by what Rancière calls passion for inequality.