Combative feminist lesbians in the streets: using radical astheticism as popular lesbofeminist pedagogy

• In Event: Roundtable Session (Wednesday III)
  In Refereed Round-Table Session: Gender issues: intersections between education and constructions of identity

Proposal

Few forms of music are as accessible to audiences around the world as the batucada, a sub-style style of Brazilian samba influenced by African percussion, traditionally performed by an ensemble in a public setting such as the streets (Samba Batucada, 2008). Because of this accessibility, many feminist collectives in Latin America have used the batucada as their chosen form of protest, taking to the streets in manifestations to denounce patriarchy, capitalism, imperialism, and neoliberalism that threaten women and other marginalized groups in society. This use of art as a form of protest serves to challenge oppression and destruction with hope, joy and the collective imagining of a new world while also serving as a meeting point for like-minded women to heal, listen to each other, learn, organize, and empower each other.
One such collective, the Batukada Estallido Feminista from Medellín, Colombia, has appropriated the batucada style to form not only a feminist collective, but on that is popular and lesbicofeminista. The term lesbicofeminista combines the identities “lesbian” and “feminist” and alludes to Adrienne Rich’s (1980) concept of the lesbian continuum, which does not fixate solely on the sexual practices of lesbians but also on “many more forms of primary intensity between and among women, including the sharing of a rich inner life, the bonding against male tyranny, the giving and receiving of practical of practical and political support...” The Batukada’s songs workshops, events, images, and brochures, which we refer to as "cultural-political creations," critique modern structures of oppression, particularly the heteropatriarchy through an intersectional analysis that includes a critique of racism, colonialism, capitalism, neoliberalism, and the exploitation of the Earth. These cultural-political creations are socialized in public spaces, primarily the streets, and require the participation of "spect-actors," a term borrowed from the Theatre of the Oppressed (Boal, 2011) that refers to the dialogic relationship between actors and audiences.
García Camargo (2017) explains that this type of accessible artistic creation is "a form of aesthetic production that establishes a critical resistance to the hegemonic interpretation of the world." This aesthetic production is presented in all aspects of daily life and becomes a popular pedagogical practice, "capable of producing knowledge, emancipating, and socially enriching in ways alternative to the dominant culture" (p.128). We consider that the Batukada’s cultural-political creations engage in a practice of critical aestheticism which forms the heart of their lesbicafeminista popular pedagogy.
This popular pedagogy is important because in Colombia, home to more than 48 million people, approximately 19 million are enrolled in formal school (UNESCO, 2016) while all are exposed to popular education, manifest in the mundane events of everyday life. Popular pedagogies are powerful strategies for collective liberation, radical in their inclusivity and necessarily grassroots, horizontal, and autonomous.
In this study, we embark on a qualitative, participatory research process to articulate the popular pedagogical practice of the Batukada Estallido Feminista. As a result, we identify three didactical tools, discussed at length in our paper: non-conventional instruments, taketinas, and the de-composition of songs which, when applied to the Batukada’s pedagogical model, the Ciclo del Estallido Musical Orgásmico, engage spect-actors in a popular, pedagogical, transformative journey of empowerment.
The Batukada’s pedagogical process involves an interpretation and critical analysis of existing cultural-political products, resulting in the production of new ones. For example, the Batukada’s latest musical creation, Yo Aborté, is a response to the reggaetón remix by Casper, Darell, Nicky Jam, Bad Bunny and Ozuna, whose lyrics are about "throwing" a woman away. The lyrics, misogynistic and vulgar, are acts of violence against women that strengthen stereotypes that objectify them and justify other forms of violence. The popularity of the song and the harmfulness of the lyrics led the Batukada to respond with their own version that reflects their epistemologies. Yo Aborte, which retains the melody and changes the lyrics, celebrates women aborting the patriarchy as an act of autonomy and nods to the sweeping pro-choice movement in Latin America. Using non-conventional instruments that make the music accessible to all and re-appropriate household objects such as pots and bins, traditionally used by the patriarchy to oppress women, as tools of empowerment and autonomy, the Batukada promotes a depatriarchalizing of society.
Spect-actors further engage in the pedagogical process when they de-compose their own songs through the contextualization of their experiences and territories. For example, in the Segundo Encuentro de Liberadoras y Lberadores de la Madre Tierra held in July 2018 in the Valle del Cauca, the Batukada shared with Nasa women and girls, who are in the process liberating the Mother Earth, in the construction of a song with the melody to "El Pescador,” a popular Colombian song. We collectively created "La Liberadora," a song about the importance of ancestral cultivation as a tactic to liberate of the Earth. The lyrics read: "The time is coming / To start planting / The corn that we eat / And the yucca for lunch / The Cultivator / Frees the Earth / The Cultivator / Cuts the cane / The Cultivator / Plants mangos / And also papaya ... If we don’t liberate the earth / There will be nothing left / Not even pineapple to suck on…" In order to create a song like this, spect-actors must engage in a critical analysis of the geopolitical context in which their resistance is situated, articulate the reasons and methods of their resistance, and depict all of this in a condensed, popular, artistic form. In the process, they collectively construct knowledge about and for their communities and organize amongst themselves to transform their realities.
It is useful to share the Batukada’s experience of critical aestheticism as a lesbicafeminista popular pedagogy in order to advocate for the power of popular pedagogies in general to address many of our societal problems, particularly violence against women, girls, and lesbians. We are curious to share this in the context of CEIS in order to receive feedback from education practitioners and researchers and to hear about other experiences with popular pedagogies all around the world.

Authors

• Andrea Alejandra Gordillo Marquina, UCLA

• Silvana Velásquez Carvajal, Universidad de Colombia sede Medellín