Anti-colonial Praxis Under Fascism: Experiments in Democratic Learning, Participatory Consciousness and Movement Work

• In Event: Rethinking Qualitative Research Methodologies and the Roles of Resistance for Critical Self-Determination

Abstract

This session will examine several educational models based in Los Angeles, USA, that experiment with notions of abolition and direct democracy outside mainstream schooling institutions, with an emphasis on one revolutionary cooperative micro-school. These models predominantly serve working-class Black and Brown communities interested in anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist politics. The session will discuss the models’ practices regarding: 1) developing learner agency and critical consciousness, 2) nurturing learners’ participation in ones’ community to build combat injustices and challenge neoliberal institutional power, 3) building widespread democratic community networks to support learning and foster the type of praxis necessary to build alternative worlds free of capitalist exploitation, ecological degradation, and all other antagonisms to human flourishing, 4) Allowing students to design and participate in their own anti-colonial research projects to better their own communities.
The models explored draw from a rich tradition of liberatory scholarship and movements. These include praxes emanating from models such as the liberation Schools, humanist education, and philosophies (Fielding & Moss, 2011; Glasser, 1998; Gray, 2013; Rogers, 1995), as well as critical and anti-colonial pedagogies (Freire, 2007; Grande, 2007; Love, 2019; McLaren, 1994; Muhammed & Love, 2020; Sehr, 1997). These theoretical frameworks emphasize critical humanizing pedagogical approaches where education is always necessarily political and applied towards self and social transformation.
The models presented draw insights from a 2010 collaborative project where this author worked with others to explore anti-colonial, humanizing research and learning approaches. The specific concepts from that work to be highlighted in this session include: 1) Eschewing traditional Western linear methodologies (Smith, 2012), 2) Fostering environments of cultural humility, 3) placing primacy on social responsibility and culturally responsive pedagogies, 4) Challenging Western paradigms by using non-traditional modes of relating to others (Cajete, 2015).
The author’s scholarly activities, along with several studies that have emerged from the educational models to be discussed, will provide rich data for the session.
The observable aspects of the education models to be presented embrace the following practices:
1) A student-based, non-linear, interconnected curriculum that is sociopolitical and encourages active community work,
2) Democratic student participation,
3)Emphasis on non-coercive and anti-colonial curricula and practices,
4)A holistic view of students, taking their felt concerns seriously,
5) The value of continuous self-reflection,
6) Educators' role as guides who, in their most liberating role, are unobtrusive resources available to learners.

The educational spaces to be discussed in this session are ongoing experiments. They embrace the challenges that come from co-creating structures with students that honor students’ identities and experiences, to foster greater socio-political agency. As we descend further into fascism, students are facing significant economic and social upheaval. Qualitative researchers should consider anticolonial methodologies that center open, democratic, non-linear, community-based strategies over apolitical rigid ones as they conduct studies with minoritized and racialized youth. Critical anti-colonial educators can strive to provide what Fielding (2012) describes as “practical incantations of lived alternatives” (p. 17) and an “anticipatory image of broader transformations” (p. 19).

Author

• Ndindi Kitonga, Angeles Workshop School