What’s Love Got to Do With It? Shifting Womanist Pedagogies and Praxes

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

Our symposium focuses on the possibility of love as “a political technology” (Sandoval, 2000) and “transformational force” (hooks, 2000) in educational spaces. Despite our educational experiences with institutions, ‘intellectual’ epistemologies, and ideologies that attempt to render our minds, bodies, and souls as objective and loveless, we oppositionally draw from our varied experiences and epistemologies to conceptualize pedagogical strategies grounded in love. Expanding on education and feminist theories and practices, we imagine ways love can be used as a tool for social transformation and soul/spiritual healing in various sites of teaching and learning. This symposium offers new pedagogical visions in an educational environment that calls for fresh understandings of the educator role and identity. Ultimately, we reimagine the role of love in the struggle for educational equity and an anti-oppressive society. We embrace a womanist philosophy for its holistic approach and commitment to the well-being of each of us through love.

Sub Unit

• Committee on Scholars and Advocates for Gender Equity in Education

Chair

• Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales, San Francisco State University

Papers

• Pedagogy of the Womb - Cindy Huynh, University of Utah

• Grounded in Love: Pedagogy and the Differential Consciousness - Cindy Ochoa Fierros, University of Utah

• Metabolizing the Pain: Pedagogies From the Wound - Melissa-Ann Nielo Nievera-Lozano, University of California - Santa Cruz

• Pedagogies of Care: Teaching and Learning Toward Decolonial Love - Jocyl Sacramento, California State University - East Bay

Discussant

• Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales, San Francisco State University