Reparative digital pedagogies: Teaching about gender diversity and the Khwaja Sira in South Asia

• In Event: Marginalization and technology: Issues, solutions, and new approaches

Proposal

Relevance
The Looking Glass is a multimodal pedagogical resource based on a 3-year ethnographic research project on indigenous gender minorities in Pakistan, specifically the Khwaja Sira communities. It utilizes digital tools, film, and literature to learn and teach about colonialism, power, gender, and violence through a post-colonial and critical theory lens. This paper presentation will explore the development of these multimedia resources through decolonial and participatory methodologies, the affordances of digital platforms in global citizenship education, and how these resources can be mobilized to promote critical pedagogy in higher education in Pakistan and beyond.

Developed in collaboration with the UKRI and the Education, Justice, and Memory Network, our project aimed to increase awareness, knowledge, and recognition of the violent histories of gender minority communities in Pakistan. As an open-source resource, it can be adapted across various contexts to facilitate a discussion of power and gender within and outside the classroom. The project particularly aims to highlight subaltern histories and narratives that are not officially recognized in pedagogy and social policy.

Context and Theoretical Foundation

The Khwaja Sira are an ethnic and gender minority group native to the subcontinent (Hinchy, 2017). Despite their centuries-old presence in the history, literature, and societies of South Asia, their communities have been systemically ostracized and marginalized (Khan, 2017). In present-day Pakistan, their oppression is legitimized by the state and carried out by its actors (Nisar, 2018). In 2009, there was a movement towards introducing protection and rights, which culminated in the Transgender Protection Act of 2018, a landmark bill promising self-perceived and diverse gender identities equal stature and rights. However, in 2023, inspired largely by social media uproar and misinformation campaigns based on anti-trans sentiment, key clauses of the act have been repealed (Amnesty International, 2023). As a result, violence against gender-diverse communities is pervasive and persistent. The Looking Glass aims to highlight the roots and extent of this violence through pedagogy to encourage empathy, reflexivity, and social change.

In doing so, the pedagogical resources draw on the work of Spivak (1988; 2012) and Friere (2000) to raise and “reclaim” subaltern voices, narratives, and experiences through film, art, and digital media. Specifically, the design of these resources intends to represent the everyday lived experiences and erased heritage and history of gender-diverse communities. This is accomplished by using ethnographic case studies as the foundation for these resources. Combining the theories of gender, power, and decoloniality from the works of Crenshaw (1991), Hinchy (2015; 2017), and Scott (1986), the resources challenge learners to adopt a critical lens toward the dynamics of power in intimate settings of social interactions and larger social structures of family, law, economy, and education. The project emphasizes the epistemic imperialism of Western practices of cataloging and categorizing gender to challenge power structures that diminish indigeneity and diversity (Smith, 1999; Logunes, 2008), calling learners to recognize how gender is a negotiation of power that has propagated violence against non-conforming gender identities and expressions (Butler, 2004; Halberstam, 1998).

Inquiry
We conducted a three-year ethnography across five cities in Pakistan to trace violence and injustice committed against these communities across the institutions of family, law, economy, education, and religion. We used a framework based on critical pedagogy and decolonial feminism to explore how power is negotiated on the basis of identity in South Asia, with a particular focus on the skewed categories of power introduced through colonial influence (Mrinalini, 2017; Abbas, 2021). Tracing this legacy of Western knowledge and moral imposition, we explore how gender identities native to South Asia were criminalized and corrupted, significantly determining the stature of these groups in contemporary society.

Findings
We recorded accounts of violence across all institutions, specifically physical, verbal, sexual, and emotional abuse, and financial disenfranchisement to varying degrees. The violence faced by these communities was intersectional, cutting across different institutions of family, education, religion, healthcare, police, economy, governance, and the law. This violence was often a product of cultural prejudices and misinformation that viewed gender diversity as Western propaganda with little indigenous relevance. This distortion of history perpetuates misconceptions about diversity being foreign and gender binary norms being “native” and “religious.”

This violence, particularly the violence of erasure from society and its institutions, is greatly influenced by unequal power dynamics (Hinchy, 2017; Butler, 2004). Power undergirds their circumstances, even within relationships between community members (Khan, 2020). The oppressive use of language and labels in everyday conversations, media, and the law is a colonial legacy that continues to subjugate these communities (Khan, 2019). Their representation in media is often comical, inaccurate, and harmful, which further reinforces discriminatory attitudes (Asghar & Shehzad, 2018). In the absence of pedagogy and advocacy that aims to unravel damaging narratives, there is an imperative need to teach about power through citizenship education to facilitate individual and collective actions toward social impact that can safeguard these communities.

Contribution
The digital pedagogies developed under the ambit of this project facilitate the dissemination of a gender-transformative curriculum. The multimodality of the resources enables the teaching and learning of indigenous knowledge, subaltern histories, and systemic and intersectional violence against gender minorities (Revelles-Benavente & Ramos, 2017). Using film, case studies, and story-telling, students can interact with the course content with interest, engagement, and empathy (Thomas, 2024). The use of animation and illustrations helps us teach about violence without aestheticizing it while respecting sensibilities. Through interactive and reflexive activities, students become active producers and consumers of meaning-making practices (hooks, 1994). The audio-visual nature of digital learning material garners a greater connection and understanding of the context and lived experiences of different gender-diverse communities in Pakistan. These active pedagogies of global citizenship education can help highlight subaltern narratives in civic and educational spaces. These digital pedagogies can play a significant role in overcoming invisibilization of disempowered gender expressions and indigenous narratives in highly censored countries such as Pakistan to abate the violence of omission.

Authors

• Ramsha Fatima, Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania

• Rameen Iftikhar, Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania