66.011 - Centering Us: The Role of Institutional Centers in Educational Sovereignty, Justice, and Liberation

Session Type: Invited Speaker Session

Abstract

The urgency of Black Lives Matter, Standing Rock, and Idle No More has been deepened in the current political moment. Given the ways nation-state education is structured by the ongoing settler colonial legacies of land theft, genocide, and enslavement, it is imperative for researchers to create strategic alliances and coalitions between Black education and Indigenous education. Per the AERA theme, in an era of “post truth” we are dedicated to the resurgence, reclamation, and reimagining of the truths that have sustained our communities within and beyond formal educational settings. For this session, the directors, research bases, and ongoing projects of five institutional centers enacting community-engaged research and practice seek to sustain Indigenous and Black peoples, alongside other communities of color. We are interested in learning from one another toward a collective policy/practice impact nationally and internationally. As the directors and lead scholars of these institutional centers, our decades of research have contributed foundational knowledge to Indigenous social and political thought and education (Grande, 2015); the role of arts in disrupting the school-to-prison pipeline and in Black and Latinx youth development (Fisher, 2009; Winn, 2011); the intersecting fields of education, health, whānau wellbeing and Indigenous immersion education (Pihama, 2017; Pihama et al, 2017); increasing racial equity in the high school to college going and college experiences of students of color, with a focus on first-generation and youth from low-income families (Harper 2012; Quaye & Harper, 2014); and pedagogical innovations to sustain the lifeways of youth and communities of color (Paris & Alim, 2017). All these contributions have been intersectional, looking to understand and disrupt racism in education as it intersects with gender, sexuality, class, land, dis/ability, and citizenship status. As well, our contributions have been transdisciplinary, with a particular focus on the performing arts, history, law, sociology, anthropology, linguistics, health, environmental studies, and cultural studies as each relates foundationally to projects of educational sovereignty, justice, and liberation.

Sub Unit

• AERA Presidential Session

Chair

• Django Paris, University of Washington

Speaker

• Lawrence Torry Winn, University of California - Davis

Participants

• Charles Harold Frederick Davis, University of Southern California

• Sandy M. Grande, Connecticut College

• Shaun R. Harper, University of Southern California

• Django Paris, University of Washington

• Leonie Pihama, The University of Waikato

• Maisha T. Winn, University of California - Davis