The Trap of Emancipatory Knowledge

This chapter focuses on the question of emancipatory knowledge and examines how populists and non-populists accounts use knowledge in their narratives. The chapter begins examining the way emancipation and knowledge are conceptualised within political education. It is argued that, in their appeal to emancipatory knowledge as a promise of dignity and prosperity, populists and aspirational democrats reinforce existing divisions and exclusions. The chapter makes a case for more plural and inclusive epistemologies and for more open understandings of emancipatory political education.