Inner Work, Public Acts: XY, Public Pedagogy, and Spatial Justice

• In Event: 68.027 - Spatial Justice, Educational Equity, and Critical Pedagogy in the New Latina/o Diaspora

Abstract

This conceptual paper addresses the role of XY, a podcast series based out of XX University, in enacting a creative form of knowledge dissemination and political agency. Specifically, through guest interviews, storytelling, and links to activism and education, XY serves as a form of public pedagogy (Giroux, 1999, 2000, 2004) that expands on what counts as valid knowledge (and who can name it and produce it) while rooting itself in the ways of knowing and struggles of Latin@ communities.
The Latino (a Chicano and a Boricua) co-hosts (and authors of this paper) of XY, who met in new Latin@ diaspora (NLD), draw from their experiences as faculty in this region and from their upbringing in working class Los Angeles, California and the south Bronx, New York to merge their home knowledge with their roles as professors. Home is framed as a site of additive and emancipatory information that can serve in providing critical forms of agency and solidarity with struggles that address spatial justice concerns. We specifically draw from the work of Author 1 (2010, 2016) to frame home as a site of political memory, agency, and critical consciousness with relevant information for critical scaffolding and action around equity issues that impact Latin@ communities. Moreover, XY is critically positioned within NLD communities where there is silencing of Latin@ students in classrooms (Cervantes-Soon, 2014), benevolent and overt racism, and a dearth of political representation.
Finally, implications are made for (1) expanding notions of pedagogy within higher education, (2) addressing spatial justice issues in the New Latin@ Diaspora, and (3) utilizing public pedagogy as conceptual tool for critique, resistance, and social action/justice.

Authors

• Juan F. Carrillo, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill

• Jason Cory Mendez, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill