1. INTRODUCTION
I received my undergraduate degree in Portuguese-Spanish Literature from the Federal University of Pampa, Jaguarão campus.{1} Throughout this educational period, I was shaped to think from theoretical viewpoints whose validity and recognition are based on great thinkers, especially that of Europeans. Stemming from this context, I realized that the knowledge, traditions, and experiences we acquire throughout our lives – especially those that emerge from Blacks and ethnic groups – were not considered equal in formal educational contexts, except for periodic cultural issues generally used to confirm established theories.
Although the word university refers to the universal, pluralized Brazilian education – based on a colonial/Eurocentric perspective – frames students to think that only certain people are authorized to produce knowledge, while others can only reproduce it. The frontier writer Fabián Severo (2010) states that “Las palabras tienen dueño” (The words are held by the owners). We see that the owners – primarily white subjects – continually hold the locus of power in academia.
Contrary to this thought and the condition imposed on subaltern and oppressed subjects, Decolonial studies and actions emerge within social/political movements. According to Maldonado-Torres (2018), Decoloniality is not restricted to a theory; rather, it seeks – through the struggle of movements – to achieve the emancipation of modernity: that is, to break with a social context in which subjects are scrutinized through categories. This hierarchical paradigm most clearly materializes in the notion that those owning the means of production are modern (whites) while the rest (Blacks and ethnic communities) are regarded as primitive savages.
With the advent of modernity, educational institutions (especially in Brazil) surround themselves with theories displaced from home-grown contexts. This effectively excludes all knowledge, subjects, and experiences born here due to them being considered unscientific. With Decoloniality, we embark upon re-learning to listen, observe, and look at things outside the walls surrounding universities, schools, libraries, and other formal spaces. Utilizing this perspective, we can boldly imagine and investigate different spaces as vessels of knowledge, teaching, and learning.
Based on the Decolonial movement, my current field of research pertains to educational spaces located near the Brazilian border. Students from Jaguarão, a city located in the state of Rio Grande do Sul at the extreme south of Brazil, and Rio Branco, a border city located in the Cerro Largo region of Uruguay, are those whose experiences I wish to research and relate. What has consistently occurred throughout my research process indicates that – quantitatively and qualitatively – schools and universities are normalizers, canceling (at least educationally) the culture of a country (Uruguay) to uphold a sense of Brazilian national hegemony. Simultaneously, the knowledge of Uruguayan border people continues to be subordinated and denied, while the cultural aspects of Brazilians are trumpeted as elevated and superior.
This paper does not seek to deal with border context specifically; however, it should be noted that borders – literally and metaphorically – serve as spaces of disputes and power, in which the oppressed are cast to one side and superiors to the other. This – the notion of borders – effectively creates societies where Coloniality is always present, especially concerning knowledge production and how it exacerbates inequality.
Following this, it is pivotal to discuss how modernity affects the construction of scientific knowledge and, consequently, its educational processes. To begin, we should investigate the construction of scientific knowledge imposed on us by educational institutions, the nature of which falls with colonial-oriented design (QUIJANO, 2009). Next, we will explore Decolonial movements via the concepts of casa adentro and casa afuera (WALSH, 2014), which suggest alternate pedagogical forms who dis-location from modernity can forge more inclusive educational paradigms.
For the development of this text, we will investigate the actions and productions of the Latin American group Modernidad/Colonialidad, which is composed of intellectuals/militants who study Coloniality and, consequently, the effects of modernity within countries that make up the Abya-Yala.{2}
2. THE TAPESTRY OF KNOWLEDGE
When carrying out academic writings, we mobilize and anchor ourselves in theoretical perspectives that help us reflect on what we are discussing. In educational contexts, and especially at universities, it is common to talk about theories used to guide our paths. However, these theories should not be considered decisive. According to Demo (2005), the texts we produce and theories we propagate exist within a purposefully woven fabric, in that their construction will be full of intertwining, seams, applications, and patches, designed so that the sum of things can support a given author's proposal.
Knowledge based on theory presupposes, as a rule, organized, systematic ideas, a logical structure, and an enlightening argument (DEMO, 2005). According to these principles, theory – or the exercise of theorizing – helps us to understand certain phenomena that, when written, are put in order, recorded, and publicized as science.
We know that human beings are not fixed and immutable beings (BHABHA, 1998). Therefore, theory or theorizing will not offer us definitive answers but rather relative clues to understand subjects and society in wider, more fluid, and ultimately different ways.{3}
Although Demo (2005) emphasizes that, as a field of knowledge, theory is a way to understand the other, by remaining embalmed in academia, fields of disputes emerge that are motivated by a validation of what is "scientific" and can be considered "truth". Regarding these disputes, Christian (2002, p. 85) states the following:
"[...] the theory has become a commodity that helps to determine if we will be admitted or promoted within academic institutions or, worse, if we will even be heard".
According to the author, in addition to educational spaces being shrouded in conflict where theories are weapons used to "attack" the "enemies", it is noted that the objective of most produced studies is to prescribe, normalize, and homogenize academic and school spaces. Aníbal Quijano, a Peruvian intellectual/activist, argues that modern society results from a historical and cultural phenomenon called Coloniality that can be divided into three axes: the Coloniality of Power, the Coloniality of Being, and the Coloniality of Knowledge.
The Coloniality of Power occurs via hegemonic structures that direct the production of capital to the dominant classes. The second axis – the Coloniality of Being – aims at naturalizing the processes of servitude, enslavement, and the trivialization of unfair and unequal relationships. Finally, the Coloniality of Knowledge implies the domination of fields of knowledge, thereby imposing standards of investigation, teaching, and learning to produce what can be considered knowledge. Although these three axes work together, each operates with greater emphasis on its specific field. Regarding the educational field, Cardozo (2020, p. 201) explains,
"[...] we see that these colonial actions act not only in the scope of knowledge, but also of being and power, in which differences are evidenced, knowledge is regulated, and hierarchical formations delimit the positions of each subject in social relations".
Based on Quijano's assumptions (2009), from the scope of the Coloniality of Knowledge, we ask ourselves: Who can produce scientific knowledge? Is science white? Throughout the history of Abya Yala, indigenous people and blacks were great producers of science: for example, they were the pioneers in phototherapy, a practice that, although the name was only given centuries later, was used for curative treatments within their communities. Concerning Black subjects, Christian (2005) states that they always theorized but from a different logic point, which, in academic fields, was not (and still is not) always considered valid.
People of color have always theorized, but quite differently from the Western model of abstract logic. I am even inclined to say that our theorizing (and I intentionally use the verb instead of the noun) appears frequently in our narrative forms, in the stories we create, in riddles and proverbs, in language games, since the dynamism of ideas seems to please us more than any rigidity. If it were not so, how would we have managed to survive with so much inspiration the attacks on our bodies, our social institutions, our countries, our humanity, in short? And women, at least the women I grew up around, always reflected on the nature of life through forceful language that unmasked the power relations existing in their worlds. (CHRISTIAN, 2005, p. 86).
General academia has a fixed paradigm defining who can theorize, and this does not include characteristics about subjects who carry the knowledge of their ancestors and what has been acquired via socially-imposed difficulties. Sadly, intellectual culture is designed not to include these people.
According to Bhabha (1998), hegemonic contexts incorporate theory aligning to elite-approved discourse, which sees the condemned of the Earth left isolated and disregarded. For other types of knowledge not resulting from academic ego to be recognized, there must be a shift in what is presently known as knowledge. Bhabha (1998) states that the committed intellectual should not only be concerned with the theoretical but also merge practical knowledge with intellectual exercise. From this, cultures can reemerge, identities can change, and societies can transform in equitable, beneficial ways.
We see that the fields of theory, science, and knowledge are often at loggerheads. As such, contemporary academic disputes are no longer only between white intellectuals in search of academic hegemony; instead, educational spaces are starting to allow other voices to actively position themselves, the purpose of which is to illustrate and reaffirm once-marginalized knowledge and experience passed down from our ancestors.
3. HOME WITHIN AND HOME WITHOUT
To be recognized as social subjects, assets, and producers of knowledge, it is necessary for instilled social structures to be reconfigured, both by those holding power and through reimagining what qualifies as instances of being and knowledge. Driven by a Decolonizing political movement, Walsh (2014) claims we need to go through a process that he calls home: that is, a period in which a subject begins to reflect and become uncomfortable with what place he occupies in modern society. For Walsh, home symbolizes the moment we meet our ancestry in order to recognize ourselves, accept ourselves, and decolonize ourselves. Per Villa,
[…] this can be guaranteed from the transmission processes of cultural contents that are affirmed through intragenerational and intergenerational conversation. It is about ensuring the production, distribution, and circulation of cosmogonic referents to take seriously the narration and narration from, with, between, and for the strengthening of the community sense that gives an account of ourselves in relation with the others and them […]. (VIILA; VILLA, 2014, p. 397).
Following this period of recognition and constancy with the past and accordant ancestry, the subject (inside the home) adopts an active posture in the face of inequalities. Termed by Walsh (2014) as casa afuera, the subject becomes responsible for disobedience and resistance against dominator society oppressors while also seeking to reach and integrate the knowledge of the other rather than but looking to seek approval.
It can also be useful for us to sow in spaces at home, including academic spaces, showing that communities always have and follow a clear idea of their cultural and painful values that can be relationships with others. Zenón's words give the word to the community, breaking the myth that our knowledge is not knowledge. (SALAZAR; WALSH, 2016, p. 306).
In the educational field, the casa afuera movement integrates different pedagogical perspectives with a view to offering educational institutions other learning methods by deviating from previously established procedures. One contextual example is the idea that Brazil was discovered by the Portuguese and that indigenous subjects do not have a soul. Anchored in Freire, Walsh (2014, p. 29), claims that "[...] pedagogy is understood as an essential methodology within and for the social, political, ontological, and epistemic struggles of Liberation"; that is pedagogy – along with praxis – is an activity of action and reflection on the world and ourselves which intends to transform both the school and society (FREIRE, 1987).
Thinking in the context of casa adentro and casa afuera (recognition and liberation), Walsh (2014) proposes a Decolonial pedagogy that emerges from the cracks. Formed at the core of Black, indigenous and other subject-oriented resistance, this pedagogy should stand bravely against the prevailing global capitalist, colonial, racist patriarchy (WALSH, 2016). As proposed by Fanon (2005), a Decolonial pedagogy intends to unlearn everything that has been learned in order to learn and grow according to other logic frameworks.
My thinking, then, is to unlearn to think from the universe of totality and to learn to think and act in its outskirts, fissures, and cracks, where life dwells, sprouts, and grows. The cracks have been converted into part of my location and place. They are an integral part of how and where I position myself politically, epistemically, ethically, and strategically. They are also an integral part of the transgressions, indisciplines, ruptures, and displacements that force me to look at myself critically, to learn to unlearn in order to relearn how to think, act, feel and walk Decoloniality, individually, and collectively. So they are constitutive of how I understand, construct, and assume my practice, including in a university space. (WALSH, 2016, s/p).
In addition to Decolonial versions, other pedagogical models exist that consider different contexts and specificities, whether they be spatially, culturally, or identity-oriented. Some of these include frontier pedagogies, insurgent pedagogies, Black pedagogies, and indigenous pedagogies, amongst others.
In short, although revolutionary pedagogies have specific focuses, they all originate from a Decolonial core aligning with resistance, the goal being to respect and include our ancestry, original cultures, the traditions of the places we live, and, above all, what knowledge has been accrued over time. History, for one, is marked by intense resistance forged from the ongoing process of dehumanization that Coloniality has wrought for so long. These new pedagogies represent the social, cultural, and political movements established in hegemonic spaces of education as acts of resistance, the sum of which can lead us to consider different ways of educating and training critical subjects, and by doing so, begin dismantling vertical educational practices.
4. FINAL CONSIDERATIONS
Throughout this text, our objective was to discuss how modernity affects the construction of scientific knowledge and, consequently, its educational processes. To this end, we first dealt specifically with the construction of knowledge as something to be woven and sewn, which, contrary to hegemonic absolutism, does not emerge only from other theories or academic discussions. In an educational context, we must consider the experiences and traditions of those who have never entered educational institutions but whose knowledge and value – accrued since time began – has an indispensable amount to teach everyone.
In the second part of this paper, we dealt with the processes of recognizing ourselves as social and active subjects while taking an active and political position that opposes dominator society oppression. Two processes of this ilk are known as casa adentro and casa afuera (WALSH, 2014). These movements implore us to reflect on our attitudes to understand better the overarching structures of power, being, and knowledge. Furthermore, their philosophically-oriented mobilization drives us to occupy social spaces previously unavailable to many, which in turn allows us to pay forward the wisdom and importance of our ancestors.
There exists no sets recipe or methods for achieving Decoloniality. Rather, Decolonial momentum emerges from projects aiming to detach societies from the logic that one single project reflective of the world exists. In sum, the construction of scientific knowledge as a movement should be re-thought and re-configured, because doing so can better balance our present with our past, which in turn may enable a fairer present and hence more equitable future. By knowing what we constitute and what constitutes us – through land, experience, and the right of individual authenticity – we can form greater and more productive modes of learning that traditional education institutions can never hope to replicate.
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Questions for Reflection:
Renan appears closely aligned with the Decoloniality movement, particularly regarding how education and alternate pedagogies can offer different epistemes for the world to consider and grow from. Do you feel your education – both inside and outside the classroom – has provided you sufficient scope to assess the situation of others beyond your personal context? In addition, do you feel it important for modern education to adopt a more inclusive stance that reflects different epistemes and ontologies?