Mingling and Resonance: education as guarding the world

Critical educators based their proposal on the question of teaching to change the world and society. Our aim is to contribute to a rethinking of the role of education in building a more just society through the new perspective of post-critical pedagogy (PCP). The authors propose to overpass the paradigm of changing the world, guided by the idea that education today should focus on guarding the world. We discuss two different concepts, that conceive PCP in two different ways: Hartmut Rosa’s concept of ‘resonance’ on one side, and Michel Serres’s idea of ‘mingling’ with the world on the other. Resonance delineates a manner in which individuals and the world engage in a relationship, ultimately shaping each other’s form. Rosa’s resonance theory is connected with critical theory: for Rosa, resonance is a space of meaning within the accelerated and alienating world. Instead Serres refuses the critical moment: according to him, the act of knowing does relies on a respectful ‘mingling’ with the world that does not entail any critical stance. Through this term, Serres encapsulates an ecological approach to knowledge, proposing a just relationship with the surrounding world as the foundation of knowledge. We will build on these concepts in order to affirm two different interpretations of PCP and justice, generally conceived as a just relationship with the surrounding world.