'Democracy to come': A personal narrative of pedagogical practices and 'Othering' within a context of higher education and research training

The purpose of this essay is to simultaneously work for and against democracy, 'Othering' and commonality, from the perspective of a teacher and qualitative methodologist working in a higher education setting. I describe examples of conceptual frameworks and my own pedagogical practices that are shaped by a multidimensional, incomplete, and fragmented vision of democracy. Furthermore, I discuss both the possibilities and impossibilities of learning and teaching within the context of changing, but specific historical and material pedagogical conditions. Specifically, I focus on how learners' rights, responsibilities, and various voices and the partially negotiated curriculum require the learning community to (re)consider the 'Other' - other learners, pedagogies, and ideologies, as well as other contexts and contents of learning.