Borderland Pedagogies of Cariño: Portraits That Reveal Communal Practices of Care and Support

• In Event: 34.095 - MTCC Roundtable Session 11
  In Roundtable Session: 34.095-1 - Community-Based Inquiry as Critical, Caring, and Transformative

Abstract

Drawing from ethics of care (Noddings, 2013) and Chicana/Latina feminist perspectives (Delgado Bernal et. al., 2006), this paper explores how one Chicana teacher, in an alternative school along the U.S./Mexico border, crafted a pedagogical approach involving testimonio and communal forms of support, or what I call borderland pedagogies of cariño (care). This approach is rooted in the teacher’s interactions with Latina teen mothers who straddle an international border and the boundary of mother/student. This framework deepens the co-constructed and relational aspect of care ethics through a space of healing in which teachers and students bear witness to their most intimate stories. Moreover, in order for teachers to practice personalized care with students they in turn need care from others.

Author

• Ganiva Reyes, Miami University - Oxford