Subaltern Pedagogy: Education, Empowerment, and Resistance Among African Migrant Workers in Beirut, Lebanon

• In Event: 33.078 - Roundtable Session 11
  In Roundtable Session: 33.078-12 - Standardization Across the World: Discursive Construction of Educational Pathways

Abstract

President Obama recently asserted, “We live in a complex world and at a challenging time” in response to the myriad global crises such as regional violence in the Middle East, the humanitarian crisis on the U.S.-Mexico border, and climate-related catastrophes. For those populations affected, migration becomes the reality. Such movement precipitates a paradigm shift in educational praxis. Based on ethnographic research and in-depth interviews of African migrant workers in Beirut, Lebanon in educational contexts, this study asserts a theoretical frame informed by critical pedagogy (Freire, 1970), third world feminisms (Sandoval, 2000), postcolonial theory (Said, 1978; Spivak, 1988) and spatial analysis (Soja, 2010) to support a subaltern praxis that re-defines the ways we as educators conceptualize pedagogy, practice, and “the other”.

Author

• Shireen Keyl, The University of Arizona