International Journal of Cultural Policy

Being engaged in several international research projects trying to articulate the importance of public cultural policies in contributing to positive societal transformations regarding human rights, social justice, and fair international relations, I have found that the teaching and learning processes in the field of cultural policy are less open than cultural policy research practice to inclusiveness, sensitivity to subaltern, peripheral, participative democratic approach, etc..  Usually, teaching references and the theoretical framework represent hegemonic knowledge of the Global North, even when analysing and exploring subaltern and peripheral phenomena. The text explores how students of cultural policy feel when knowledge, coming from below, especially the one that produces a critical perspective of hegemonic knowledge in the present power relations. Thus, the title of this paper refers to the several cases of “tears in the classroom” when students (a Kurd from Iran in Italian Cultural Heritage Master program; a working-class student from a post-industrial settled in a Master program linked to Heritage in highly profiled academic institution in Belgrade Serbia, and Palestinian from old Jerusalem during pan-Arabic study program in Cultural Policy and Management), faced with the fact that their experiences and values are not part of shared knowledge, nor of interest of others, felt double-excluded. My positionality statement includes not only my academic professor position coming from a European semi-periphery and a small public art university, but also my feminist and activist perspective built over the last 40 years in constant battles for a better society, confronted with the evils of nationalism, capitalism, and all forms of transitional injustice.