PEP PODS: Pin@y Educational Partnerships’ Praxis-Oriented Development Series

• In Event: Offerings of Love and Accountability: Cultivating Empathy Through Loss and Grief

Abstract

This paper examines how Pinay scholar-activists developed a virtual third space as a response to national and local movements in the summer of 2020. Inspired by third wave feminism (Walker, 1992), Pin@y Educational Partnerships’ Praxis-Oriented Development Series (PEP PODS) is a space for critical consciousness raising among school and community practitioners committed to combating anti-Black racism, ableism, and sexism in their praxis. This paper engages in the following questions: What is the importance of third spaces? How can third spaces allow school and community practitioners to inform their praxis and pedagogies?

We expand on the concept of hybridity as a catalyst for third spaces (Gutiérrez et al., 1999). Engaging in hybridity has allowed us to explore the complexities of our identities as school and community practitioners in relation to Black, Indigenous, and People of Color led national and local movements. We offer a praxis in developing third spaces that coalesce our identities and pedagogies, emphasizing the importance of community, care, and collaboration. Our third space also allowed for the imagining and strengthening of solidarities and empathy across racial groups during a time of isolation due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Authors utilized kuwentuhan (Francisco-Menchavez, 2022), a Filipinx cultural practice/method of exchanging dialogue, reflections, and analysis to make meaning of our relational experiences. Drawing from our virtual kuwentuhan sessions, we share how we expanded our understandings of racial justice and disability justice to inform our praxis and pedagogies.

We created PEP PODS to respond to the need for school and community practitioners to have a collective space where they could make sense of their identities and commitments in the midst of community grief during the summer 2020 uprisings. Since then, PEP PODS participants have collectively read: (1) Freedom Dreams by Robin D.G. Kelley, (2) Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor by Layla Saad, and (3) Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha. These texts provided frameworks to situate our work and challenged us to return to our purpose, reflect on our commitments, and reimagine our roles as school and community practitioners in the context of our collective grief.

PEP PODS as a third space has been instrumental in welcoming and centering our humanity as we continue to endure oppressive and unconducive working environments. Despite the cultural taxation (Padilla, 1994) and racial battle fatigue (Smith et al., 2020) we experience, we continue to engage in this third space because it serves as a reminder of the many possibilities that can exist outside of educational spaces and workplaces. PEP PODS is an example of a counter space that allows school and community practitioners to engage in humanizing dialogue and build solidarity across various contexts.

Authors

• Lauren Arzaga Daus, University of California - Los Angeles

• Jocyl Sacramento, California State University - East Bay