Decoding Generative Narratives: Exploring the Politics of the Text
- Nick Kroger
- Nov 9, 2015
- 3 min read
While Freire’s larger body of work was in philosophy and pedagogy, literacy was the molten center of these larger flames. Freire’s insight into the literacy process has consisted of many ideas about critical thinking, semantics, and comprehension.
At the genesis of his argument about literacy, is his understanding of themes which persist throughout texts and the world. “Generative themes” (Freire, 1970/1990, p. 93) are pervasive stories located within a certain epoch which grants these stories their semantic context. In short, these are narratives which exist outside of an individual; rather, they spawn from a community functioning within the culture and context of their time. The social heritage, customs, beliefs, and skills of a culture all create a character for that culture. Furthermore, multiple characters (or perhaps one dominant one) transcend a cultural level towards a national or world identity.
Freire argues “the fundamental theme of our epoch to be that of domination—which implies its opposite, the theme of liberation, as the objective to be achieved. It is this tormenting theme which gives our epoch the anthropological character mentioned earlier” (Freire, 1970/1990, p. 93). Freire posits that society
must enact liberation to end domination. He sees this liberation as another step towards the universal vocation of humanization.
To enact liberation, one must disrupt the generative themes which perpetuate domination. However, often times people perceive reality (and the stories told about it) as impenetrable. Freire argues that approach these dialogues with a methodology of conscientização can unveil these themes. While under the veil, these themes are “coded”.
Decoding [these themes] requires moving from the abstract to the concrete; this requires moving from the part to the whole and then returning to the parts; this in turn requires that the Subject recognize himself in the object (the coded concrete existential situation) and recognize the object as a situation in which he finds himself, together with other Subjects. If the decoding is well done, this movement of flux from the abstract to the concrete which occurs in the analysis of a coded situation leads to the supersedence of the abstraction by the critical perception of the concrete, which has already ceased to be a dense impenetrable reality. (Freire, 1970/1990, p. 96)
While this quote is very theoretical, it translates well into practice. Suppose a child is viewing a gallery of images from the death of Michael Brown, and the corresponding protests, riots, and movements which occurred following Brown being shot by a police officer. A child might find these images (texts) to be inaccessible and de facto. But challenging students to decode the text can offer valuable insight into comprehension and reflection. First, a student must move from a concrete image (such as a protest) to an abstract concept such as institutional racism. Second, a child must move back from the abstract to the physical: Moving from institutional racism to historical acts of police brutality. Repeatedly zooming in on this image and then zooming out allows the child to locate himself/herself in the context of the situation as a Subject. Seeing oneself as a subject is the first step to agency in prompting change. The second step is seeing the others combined with self as Subjects in the event.

Decoding is unveiling images, texts, paintings, movies, or books, and finding the context of self and other within the situation presented. This critical perception and newfound agency work together to form a praxis: critical literacy.
In all, it is important to understand Freire’s method for decoding as it opens up a deeper analysis of literature in the classroom. Dialoguing about these constructed worldviews and narratives can stop students from acquiescing to the notion that the world is impenetrable. Rather, these critical skills give students a way to turn impenetrability into vulnerability—domination into liberation.
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