Life-Affirming Pedagogies as a Decarceral Path to Justice

• In Event: Centering Care and Love: Approaches and Pedagogies

Abstract

This paper utilizes a study of democracy, higher education in prison, abolition, and Chicana/Latina Feminisms to theorize how to maintain healing and life-affirming pedagogies. In order to envision an intersectionally just democracy, we must (1) abolish carceral logics, (2) inhabit multiple worlds and the borderlands between them in the process of creation, and (3) explore life-affirming pedagogies that center the mindbodyspirit and artistic creation, drawing on my experience as an educator in carceral spaces. Throughout all of these, we must learn with and from incarcerated peoples as peers, not subjects.

Author

• Kyra Solis, University of Utah