The Praxis of Solidarity and Resistance: Education in Our Barrios Project

• In Event: Un/Learning: Latinx Praxes

Abstract

The number of Latinx students and students of color in the US education system have grown exponentially over the last 40 years, and they continually are underserved, policed, marginalized and silenced as they navigate the structures of racial capitalism within the school-community nexus. The purpose of this presentation is to explore the pedagogical dimensions of the Education in our Barrios Project, #BarrioEdPro. #BarrioEdProj, is a participatory action research (PAR) collaborative that focuses on working with urban Latinx youth in examining the social and educational conditions that they are situated in as a means to working toward solidarity amongst participants, and engaging in collective studying, planning and organizing for social change. In this paper I will discuss aspects of what Torre & Ayala (2009) describe as a PAR “EntreMundos/Among worlds” that draws primarily from a southern tradition that follows the ideas of Fals Borda (1974) Martin-Baro (1994), and Freire (1993, 1994, 1998) and their efforts to liberate marginalized populations from oppression by combining critical inquiry and activism. As a collaborative of primarily urban Latinx youth we have asked ourselves what are the social conditions we and our friends and family face both in our communities and schools? Further, we ask what can we do to disrupt and dismantle these structures and forces. By engaging youth in archival and ethnographic research, storytelling, community survey, and educating others, the collaborative has, and continues, to enact an oppositional pedagogy that allows us to map and resist the racial capitalist urbanism that shapes all of our lives.

Author

• Edwin Mayorga, Swarthmore College