66.073 - Refusing Abstraction: Place-Based Critical Pedagogy as Resistance in a Post-Truth Neoliberal World

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

Freire wrote at length about the significance of place in critical pedagogy: places hold histories, futures, desires, despair, resilience, pain, hope and incredible transformative power. Abstraction in education is therefore a dehumanizing act, and refusing abstraction is revolutionary. The papers in this session explore: onto-epistemological dimensions of Freire’s praxis; university-community partnerships in Rio de Janero; the relationship between “territory” and conscientization in environmental education in Rio de Janero; tensions between migration and place faced by international graduate students in Canada; and urban students’ relationship with nature in the Northeast U.S. Presenters engage the complexities of place-based critical pedagogy, working through its potential and challenges, anchoring the discussion in the material conditions of people’s lives, and refusing the dehumanization of abstraction.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Paulo Freire, Critical Pedagogy, and Emancipation

Chair

• Tricia M. Kress, Molloy College

Papers

• Walking With Freire: Exploring the Onto-Epistemological Dimensions of Critical Pedagogy - Tricia M. Kress, Molloy College; Robert Lewis Lake, Georgia Southern University

• Critical Place-Based Learning and University-School-Community Partnerships in Violent Places: Experiences From Rio de Janeiro - Inny Accioly, Universidade Federal Fluminense

• Deepening Freire Through Place-Based Critical Pedagogy: Territoriality and Conscientização in Socio-Environmental Praxis - Nicolas Stahelin, School for International Training

• How to Be Here From Somewhere Else: Learning About Place and Migration - David A. Greenwood, Lakehead University

• Young People and Nature in the City: Minoritized High School–Aged Youths' Relationships to Nature - Andrew Turchon, Revere Public Schools