Southern Feminist Envisioning of Anti-Evaluation Knowledge Spaces

• In Event: 50462 - Section on Science, Knowledge, and Technology Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 5: Femininities

Abstract

The global knowledge economy is characterised by a Northern hegemony, which is often reproduced by educational institutions such as universities (Spivak 2003; Bhambra, Medien and Tilley 2020; Banerjee and Connell 2018; Rivera Cusicanqui 2020). Southern feminist approaches towards the academic production model have been developed in response to, and in critique of, the coloniality of knowledge production. They can be described as epistemic interventions that question colonial and paternalistic knowledge practices (Mohanty 2003). Grounded in a Southern feminist ethic of deep care (Banerjee, Khandelwal, and Sanyal 2024), this paper highlights immigrant and refugee youths’ reflections on an informal learning space positioned both within and at a subversive tangent to a Northern university. Youth and Anti-Racism Integration Collective (hereafter referred to as YARI or the Collective), that the youth are a part of has been construed as a non-evaluative, dignity-affirming, and exploratory learning space by newcomer youth participants. As such, this paper presents a counter-imagination of learning in university spaces that de-centers traditional grading and evaluation practices (Sengupta et al. 2021). In the absence of grades and formal examinations, YARI became a space for newcomer youth to build kinships (Ahmed 2003), vocalise racialised disorientations (Ahmed 2007), and engage in Southern feminist solidarity (Mohanty 2003; Banerjee and Connell 2018).

Authors

• Chetna Khandelwal, University of Calgary

• Pallavi Banerjee, University of Calgary

• Pratim Sengupta, Werklund School of Education, University of Calgary

• Megha Sanyal, University of Calgary

• Santanu Dutta, University of Calgary