The Relevance of Liberation in Development Communication

In his well-known book called the “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” (1970), Paulo Freire offered an important exploration on dialogue and the possibilities for liberatory practice. He introduced an important notion of “banking education” and highlighted the contrasts between educations that treats people as objects rather than subjects, and went on to explore on education as a cultural action. More precisely, Freire introduced the concept of liberation. Freire’s work forms a rich set of reflections about education, particularly informal education and its methods (known as pedagogy), and the ethics of liberation. In theory, Freire’s work encourages communities to participate in the planning and implementation of policies affecting their lives (Manyozo, 2003:1). Freire pedagogy is “dialogic, democratic, situated, research-oriented, active, interactive, affective and participatory” (ibid: 38). These characteristics are employed in development communication. According to Manyozo (quoting Ashcraft and Masileta, 1994), development communication refers to the “initiative of applying communication to the process of development with the end goal of improving the quality of life of developing societies.”

This essay, critically analyses and responds to Paulo Freire’s concept of liberation as presented in chapter one, chapter two and chapter three of the “Pedagogy of the Oppressed.” It also outlines, some of the critical problems in the foundations of Freire’s view on liberation, and suggests ways in which some of his conclusions can better be improved, better supported, or better applied with respect to development communication.

Having looked at his arguments on the concept of liberation as presented in the aforementioned chapters, Freire’s arguments could be summarized in this way; first, in chapter one, Freire introduces the notion of liberation and he offers a justification for a pedagogy of the oppressed and the contradictions between the oppressors and the oppressed. In chapter two, Freire, on one hand, analyses the “banking” concept of education as an instrument of oppression and he gives its presuppositions and a detailed critique. On the other hand, he introduces problem-solving education as an instrument for liberation and he also gives its presuppositions and more importantly, Freire, highlights the teacher-student contradiction. In chapter three, Freire proposes the use of dialogue as a solution to the problems that occur in education. Let us now move to the specific arguments that Paulo Freire proposes in this above-mentioned literature. However, it should be known that the essay would not move into greater detail of these arguments, as the essay is more interested with the basic arguments that Freire puts forward on the concept of liberation.

At the outset, it is important to appreciate the fact that many aspects of Freire’s work have a particular significance in development communication and have struck the right chord with a majority of development communicators. In chapter one, Freire puts forth a pedagogy in which the individual learns to “cultivate his own growth through situations from his daily life that provide useful learning experiences” (Smith, 1997, 2002:1). He mentions several ways in which the oppressed can achieve liberation. To this end, he proposes two distinct and sequential ways the oppressed should undertake. The first, involves becoming conscious of reality that the individual lives as an oppressed (Freire, 1970:3). In his opinion, “this perception is necessary but not sufficient condition for liberation” (ibid). However, this is problematic and there are many points to buttress this argument. At the outset, although Freire, openly admits that sometimes the oppressed might not be able to perceive this reality, he loses sight of the fact that some people might acquire a kind of naive consciousness in which they are aware of their situation but cannot make any effort to change it; they take a conformist stance and consider their situation something normal, even to the point of supporting themselves. Further to this, there might also be a certain group of people who can construct their own reality and liberate themselves from oppression only to go to the opposite extreme of what they were fighting against. The second method involves the oppressed taking an initiative to emancipate themselves from the oppressors (Freire, 1970:5). Freire does not believe that the lived situation consist only of a simple awareness of reality. Instead, he believes that the individual has a historical need to fight the status that dwells within him/her. The efforts of the oppressed become focused and concrete through the type of learning that school really should give them, instead of encouraging them to adapt to their reality, as the oppressors themselves do.

Indeed, in order for people to know that they are underdeveloped and poor, they have to be fully aware in the first place that they are in such situation. This is the reason why Freire talks about conscientisation as the “process of learning to perceive the social, political and economic contradictions and to take action against the oppressive elements of reality” (Freire, 1970:12). Conscientisation can help the poor to know that they are living in penury and through this knowledge; they can be empowered to initiate the process of change. Empowerment increases people’s readiness to mobilise themselves for collective action in order to achieve the objectives of the development effort (Anyaegbunam et al, 1998:11).

However, Freire admits that liberation does not come on a silver platter. Many obstacles prevent the process of liberation. For instance, the oppressors deliberately initiate violence and in the process, they violate the rights of the oppressed (Freire, 1970:6). Furthermore, the oppressors accuse those who oppose them of being disobliging, responsible, depraved and responsible for their own situation, despite the fact that even if these adjectives do sometimes apply, they are really a response to being oppressed and are ultimately the result of exploitation to which these people have been subjected. The situation gets even worse when the oppressed accept this reality and adapt to it without questioning or even attempting to change it. A classic example is when development agencies frequently promote inappropriate solutions that people refuse to adopt because the so-called development projects are not perceived as relevant to their felt needs. This stems mainly from the scantiness of effective methodologies to include the people in the identification and implementation of appropriate development projects that address local ambitions, needs and problems (Manyozo, 2003:40). For instance, the development project may involve encouraging people to be sleeping under mosquitoes’ nets, when what worries the people are rising costs of fertiliser or the broken-down water pumps. In such situations, development agencies mistakenly blame the rural poor for being resistant to change and not having the appropriate altitudes, and values to recognise the usefulness of the development project offered while overlooking the fact that the indigenous people were not granted the opportunity to determine their own destiny. The basic argument here is that “lack of participation creates a mood of passivity and community inertia towards development projects” (Kerr, 1989:470). As Freire (1970:27) simply put it that “attempting to liberate the oppressed without their reflexive participation in the act of liberation is to treat them as objects which must be saved from a burning building.” The essay now looks at Paulo Freire’s arguments as presented in chapter two of the pedagogy of the oppressed.

What Paulo Freire says in chapter two is that currently in education, there is excessive use of lecturing and memorisation, with little analysis of the importance of what is being memorised. Freire describes this situation as one in which the students are seen as containers into which knowledge can be deposited. The teacher is the depositor and the knowledge is that which is deposited on daily basis. This bank concept of education “attempts to transform the minds of individuals so that they will adapt better to actual situations and be dominated by them with greater ease” (Freire, 1970:74). This means that the more passive people are, the more they will adapt, the more their creativity will diminish and their naiveté increase, which creates conditions necessary for the oppressors to emerge as generous benefactors. The pedagogy that Freire proposes is the direct opposite of that described above. It suggests that the individual acquire a love of life through a cultivation of his/her being, by being with the world and not for it- a state that is achieved through liberation. To this end, the world needs an education that ceases to be “alienating and mechanistic” (Smith, 1997, 2002:3).

In this respect, education that liberates the individual has to be a conscious act in which the content is understood and analysed, and it must leave to one side this unidirectional and undemocratic relationship to allow bidirectionality to contribute to the whole education of both parties, since they both have elements to bring to the learning. As noted by Sargis (2008:1),”the goal of liberatory education is to provoke the student to question all-taken-for-granted values, beliefs, norms, ideas, etc. of her experience that are the given presuppositions comprising the dominant social paradigm.” Mention must now be made here that what Freire argues is that people are underdeveloped and poor because there is a wrong method of education called banking education that change agents use. He argues that the banking method of education is detrimental to development because it is non-participatory, authoritarian and non-democratic, and he proposes the use of liberatory education. It is therefore imperative to know that the key term in the concept of liberation is to end poverty and this is so because poverty imprisons people. Therefore, according to Paulo Freire, liberatory education is the key to end poverty.
Indeed, one of the major factors that have slowed human development is the lack of people’s participation in the formulation and implementation of policies and programmes that affect their lives. Unless, people become the protagonists of their own development, no amount of investment or provision of technology will improve standards of living in a sustainable manner (Anyaegbunam et al, 1998:1). The problem, however, is that the oppressed,[in this case the rural and the poor] who are supposed to become active actors in their development, to enable them improve their livelihood, are often beyond easy reach. They are generally illiterate, but they have ideas, knowledge and practices shaped by deep-rooted cultural norms, traditions, experiences and values different from those of development workers. These peculiarities or differences render the task of involving rural people in the planning and implementation of development efforts difficult. To worsen the situation, most of the development workers, who work with the rural people [who are in this case the oppressed], frequently lack the skills, tools, techniques and attributes to understand and involve them in the development process. This problem is caused mainly due to lack of proper communication between the facilitators of the projects and the oppressed, who are the recipients of the projects. All of this leads us to consider another element that is implicit, but not always clear, in relation to the concept of liberation--the issue of dialogue. This is mainly presented in chapter three of the “Pedagogy of the Oppressed”.

Paulo Freire’s critique of the dominant model of education leads to his democratic proposals for problem-solving education where men and women develop their power to perceive critically the way they exist in the world. The point he is invariably trying to make is that education must help to develop critical awareness and it must do so using democratic methods such as dialogue. This means that without dialogue, there is no communication and without communication, there can never be true liberation. Dialogue ensures that the people’s culture, altitudes, capabilities and skills, as well as their views and opinions form a basis for the planning and formulation of effective and relevant development projects and programmes (Anyaegbunam et al, 1998:11). The use of dialogue therefore is an essential key in the process of learning. Freire says that dialogue cannot exist without love, humility, faith and hope. This means that the dialogue established between the two subjects helps to increase reciprocal kindness, something that is an act of bravery, not cowardice. It is not a naïve act, but it is about the kind of dialogue that kindness between people creates.
The above comments particularly apply to development communication. For instance, some people believe themselves to be leaders and go to the masses to establish a dialogue with them. However, it is their interests and not the interests of the community that are pursued. They encourage the people to adapt to a new way of life without attending to historical demands. They fall into a naïve thinking that one should adapt to existing conditions required by critical thought--the kind of thought that builds spaces and opportunities for liberation and the overturning of oppression through conscious action. Therefore, the liberation that the oppressed desire is never really achieved.

However, it is important to establish dialogue with the community. Since this implies the use of a language similar to that with which the individual is familiar, it is necessary to integrate oneself into the life of the individual to study his/her language, practice and thought. Later, using problem solving education, these elements will come together to create knowledge, since it is not necessary to refer to other far away spaces to find opportunities and topics for study. Topics for learning can be found in the reality that surrounds the individual; it is just that they are hidden by the limiting situations that the oppressors create. These limits can disappear through the education that a problem solving facilitator, who “moves from the particular to the general encourages” (Smith, 1997, 2002:6).

However, Freire might have overlooked various open questions in his discussion about liberation. There is in fact a major problem attached to the whole idea of dialogue. A crucial problem here is the question of authority. Freire proposes the use of problem-solving education, which to him, is non-directive and non-authoritarian. However, it must be borne in mind that there is no education that is non-directive. Facilitators still maintain a certain level of authority through the depth and breadth of knowledge of the subject matter. There is no gainsaying the fact that the facilitator still grades, still has certain control over curriculum and to deny these facts of life is to be disingenuous (Macedo and Freire, 1999:47). In this respect, it does not make much sense to completely denounce the traditional method of teaching, which calls for authority over students, but rather its strength must also be recognised, a thing which Freire does not want to come to terms with. This means therefore that Freire was seriously deficient in recognising the strengths of the traditional method of education.
In summary, although a broad chorus of praise echoes a wide range of criticisms on Freire’s theories of education, it should be borne in mind that his theories have a particular significance and provide thought-stimulating insights into the understanding of development communication. First, his emphasis on dialogue, has struck a very strong chord with development communicators. As this essay has discussed, too much education, Paulo Freire argues, involves “banking”—the educator making “deposits” in the educatee. Second, Paulo Freire advocates for action that is informed and linked to certain values. This is important because it can enhance community, build social capital, and lead people to act in ways that make for justice and human flourishing. Development communicators have a long-standing orientation to action and change. Therefore, the emphasis on change in the world by Freire cannot be taken for granted. Third, Freire’s attention to naming the world is of monumental importance to development communicators traditionally work with those who do not have a voice and who are oppressed. An important element of this was his concept of conscientisation—developing consciousness that is understood to have the power to transform reality. Fourth, Paulo Freire’s insistence on situating educational activity in the lived experience of participants can open up a series of possibilities for the way development communicators can approach practice.

In conclusion, this essay has critically analysed and responded to the notion of liberation as presented in chapters one to three of the “Pedagogy of the Oppressed.” The assertion that this essay makes here is that Paulo Freire’s arguments on the concept of liberation are relevant to the understanding and application of development communication.