Critical Literacies and Decolonial Education Projects: Toward a Working Framework

• In Event: Transnational Critical Literacies for the Public Good

Abstract

Objectives
Decolonial educational projects emerge as community responses to colonialism. Three major decolonizing processes include reclaiming histories, narratives, and cultural practices. This paper explores the intersection of critical literacies in the context of decolonial educational projects, specifically the ways in which literacies mediate the continuities of colonialism but also the decolonizing processes of naming, reclaiming, and healing (Zavala, 2016). We begin by delineating decolonial critical literacy theory and then undertake an international comparative case study analysis of two somewhat disparate contexts united by intertwining colonial histories and neocolonial neoliberal presents, one in the USA and the other in Singapore.
Theoretical Framework
Decolonizing pedagogies (Iseke-Barnes, J. M., 2008; Nakata et al., 2012; Tejeda, Espinoza, & Gutierrez, 2003) represent an expansion and departure from broader critical pedagogical strands. Distinct from critical, feminist, anti-racist, and humanist pedagogies, decolonizing pedagogies begin with the assumption that colonialism and imperialism are central to the lives of racialized and historically marginalized communities, such as Chicanx, African-American, Native American, among others. A distinguishing feature of decolonizing pedagogies is their explicit engagement with the question of coloniality (Mignolo, 2007; Quijano, 2000) and how, to this day, it shapes the lives historically marginalized youth of color.
Methods & Data Sources
Reading and writing within/against colonialism and imperialism (what we conceptualize as a “decolonizing literacy”) requires, in turn, that we unpack historical processes and challenge their inner logic, unmasking the ways in which they are materialized and lived today. The challenge of a decolonizing pedagogy (and methodology) is precisely this: to draw connections between the colonial past and the present. Decolonial projects thus describe, analyze, and then materially challenge (Tuck & Yang, 2012) connections between our lives and the social, historical, and geo-political forces that encircle them, with self and social transformation as broader goals.
We discuss and analyze two concrete projects, as instantiations, of critical literacy in the context of decolonizing education projects, identifying possibilities and actualities of challenging coloniality. The first context is the U.S. Southwest, specifically work with Chicanx immigrant youth. Second, we explore the situation in Singapore broadly as a postcolonial state with strong colonial continuity, and cases of ongoing resistance through critical literacies pedagogy.
Results & Significance
Through analysis of the place of literacies in the neocolonial contexts and decolonial projects, we find that the “texts” that enable students to understand their social worlds are primarily those rooted in their lived experience, codifications from their cultural universe (Freire, 1978), which include the communicative spaces of the home, school, neighborhoods and popular culture. Nevertheless, while students’ lived experiences are central to their understanding of the world, in this presentation we explore the role literacy practices play in mediating students’ critical understanding of colonialism and other systems of oppression. We close by describing the dimensions of what "decolonizing literacies" might look like.

Authors

• Miguel Zavala, California State University - Los Angeles

• Roberto Santiago de Roock, University of California - Santa Cruz