Embracing Everyday Fugitive Wellness: Knowledge and Transformation in Hip-Hop Learning Sanctuaries

• In Event: “They’re Telling Us Not To”: Teaching for Racial Justice During Times of Censorship and Bans

Abstract

Fugitive wellness (Nzinga & Palomar, 2023), builds upon the idea of fugitive pedagogy, asserting that not only learning but also wellness practices often face prohibitions, particularly if they are culturally relevant and geared towards liberation. Fugitive wellness practices tend to be veiled in secrecy, taking place in safe spaces like sanctuaries (Doucet & Kirkland, 2021) or undercommons (Harney & Moten, 2013) away from the watchful eye of surveillance mechanisms, When we speak of fugitive wellness among youth, we are acknowledging the reality of young individuals who find themselves in marginalized positions, such as being undocumented, living in poverty, mental health struggles, and experiencing gentrification. Youth resort to alternative methods to nurture their wellness, as their circumstances often restrict conventional avenues. In this study fugitive wellness embodies a troubling paradox experienced by historically marginalized youth and learners. Their wellness practices, much like ancestral sacred healing traditions both in the past and present, have faced criminalization and stigmatization by those in positions of power. Our focus on knowledge and transformation within Hip-Hop learning sanctuaries, and we utilize data collected to examine this phenomenon. The data helps shed light on the wide array of healing practices that youth depend on for their wellness, personal and communal development. Among these practices are everyday wellness activities that draw upon intergenerational and ancestral knowledge, as well as the holistic integration of the bodymindspirit (Lara, 2005). Their approach to wellness centers on embracing everyday rituals, which play a pivotal role in nurturing their overall growth.

Our main questions include: 1) how are youth engaging in everyday fugitive wellness, and 2) how does Hip-Hop arts curriculum provide resources for youth to pursue everyday fugitive wellness practices.

We document experiences of Black and Brown youth in a public school, facing harmful stereotypes like being labeled as troubled, criminal, and thuggish. Despite these racialized aggressions, they engage in wellness routines to heal and resist challenges. A sanctuary is an ethnic studies class, housing the Lyripeutics Storytelling Project, a six-week Hip-Hop artivism workshop with Black and Brown activists, researchers, undergraduates, artivists. Drawing on Hip-Hop pedagogy, Hip-Hop is recognized as a culturally legitimate learning resource (Ladson-Billings, 2014; Love, 2015).

Data collection uses qualitative methods: interviews, classroom observation, and arts-based data. Interviews are 30-minute, 12-item semi-structured with a study team member, audio-recorded, and transcribed verbatim. Classroom observations capture audio/video of modules and final art. For artivism projects, youth draw inspiration from Hip-Hop elements like knowledge, graffiti, lyricism, expressing fugitive wellness through songs, audio, art, and more.

Data analysis reveals everyday fugitive wellness, building on cultural and ancestral healing, both individual and communal. Students wholeheartedly embrace wellness practices centered around emotions, experiences, and the body as a profound source of knowledge. By examining the everyday practices as fugitive wellness sites, we understand how youth navigate oppressive systems while engaging in healing practices of the mind, body, spirit, and community. Prioritizing art and Hip-Hop in educational settings supports historically marginalized youth’s wellness and resistance, holding space for them to reclaim and define their healing journey.

Authors

• Marlene Sulema Palomar, University of Colorado Boulder

• Kalonji L. Nzinga, University of Colorado - Boulder

• Shawn T. O'Neal, University of Colorado - Boulder

• Alexander Williams, University of California - Los Angeles