Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-x5gtn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-07T09:57:51.663Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Critical creative pedagogies: a decolonial and indigenous approach using visual arts and creative writing

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2019

Carlos Rivera Santana  and
Graham Akhurst
Carlos Rivera Santana*
Affiliation:
Hunter College, City University of New York, New YorkNY10065, United States of America
Graham Akhurst
Affiliation:
Hunter College, City University of New York, New YorkNY10065, United States of America
*
Author for correspondence: Carlos Rivera Santana, E-mail: cr2850@hunter.cuny.edu
Get access

Abstract

The following paper argues for a critical creative paedagogy as a means of meaningfully engaging with Indigenous and decolonial philosophies. We showcase our critical frameworks and pathways for teaching a decolonial and Indigenous university course where philosophy and arts meet to engage with complex colonial, racial and epistemological questions. We first frame our theoretical and philosophical stance within critical postcolonial, Indigenous and decolonial studies. We then describe an epistemological critique within western philosophical discourse that will gesture towards a decolonial pathway to arts and discuss our creative teaching approach grounded in decolonial and Indigenous theories. Lastly, we reach to a critical and decolonial space where ‘southern’ philosophies can be ‘heard’ in their fullest complexity. We contend that creative writing and visual arts grounded in critical decolonial and Indigenous theories provide a space in which a decolonised knowledge seems possible.

Keywords

Arts and critical pedagogiescoloniality/decolonialitycontemporary Indigenous philosophiescritical creative paedagogycritical Indigenous studiesdecolonial paedagogypostcolonial studies
Type
Research Article
Information
The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education , Volume 50 , Issue 1 , August 2021 , pp. 47 - 54
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Agamben, G (2009) The Signature of all Things: On Method. New York: Zone Books.Google Scholar
Agamben, G (2012) Archaeology of Commandment. (Podcast). Available at http://www.egs.edu/faculty/giorgio-agamben/videos/the-archaeology-of-commandment/.Google Scholar
Castro-Gómez, S (2007) Michel Foucault y la Colonialidad del Poder. Tabula Rasa 6, 153–172.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dussel, E (1993) Europa, Modernidad y Eurocentrismo. In Lander, E (ed.), La Colonialidad del Saber: Eurocentrismo y Ciencias Sociales, Perspectivas Latinoamericanas. Buenos Aires: Consejo Latinoamericano de Ciencias Sociales, pp. 233–300.Google Scholar
Ehrenworth, M (2003) Looking to Write: Students Writing Through the Visual Arts. Boston: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Gebhard, A (2017) ‘Let's Make a Little Drum’: limitations and contradictory effects of cultural approaches in indigenous education. Race Ethnicity and Education 21, 757–772.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Graham, M (2008) Some thoughts about the philosophical underpinnings of aboriginal worldviews. Australian Humanities Review 45, 181–194.Google Scholar
Grosfoguel, R (2011) Decolonizing post-colonial studies and paradigms of political economy: transmodernity, decolonial thinking, and global coloniality. Transmodernity 1, 1–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knaus, CB (2009) Shut up and listen: applied critical race theory in the classroom. Race and Ethnicity 12, 133–154.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lins-Ribeiro, G (2011) Why (Post) colonialism and (De)coloniality are not enough: a post-imperialist perspective. Postcolonial Studies 14, 285–297.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lugones, M (2010) Towards a decolonial feminism. Hypatia 25, 742–759.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maldonado-Torres, N (2008) On the coloniality of being: contributions to the development of a concept. Cultural Studies 21, 240–270.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Manning, RF (2012) A critical pedagogy of place?: Te ãtiawa (Maori) and pãkehã (Non maori) history teachers’ perspectives on the teaching of local, maori and New Zealand histories. Australian Journal of Indigenous Education 40, 102–111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moorman, H (2006) Backing into exphrasis: reading and writing poetry about visual art. English Journal 96, 46–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moreton-Robinson, A (2003) I still call Australia home: Indigenous belonging and place in white postcolonizing society. In Ahmet, S, Castañeda, C, Fortier, AM and Sheller, M (eds), Urootings-Regroundings: Questions of Home and Migration. New York: Berg, pp. 23–41.Google Scholar
Nakata, M (2007) Disciplining the Savages, Savaging the Disciplines. Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press.Google Scholar
Nakata, M (2017) Difficult dialogues in the south: questions about practice [Special Issue]. Australian Journal of Indigenous Education 47, 1–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nakata, M, Nakata, V, Keech, S and Bolt, R (2012) Decolonial goals and pedagogies for Indigenous studies. Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education and Society 1, 120–140.Google Scholar
Nathani, WN (2008) Mapping the field of Indigenous knowledges in anti-colonial discourse: a transformative journey in education. Race Ethnicity and Education 11, 183–197.Google Scholar
Quijano, A (2000) Colonialidad del Poder, Eurocentrismo y America Latina. In Lander, E (Comp.), La Colonialidad del Saber: Eurocentrismo y Ciencias Sociales. Perspectivas Latinoamericanas. Buenos Aires: CLACSO, pp. 201–246.Google Scholar
Rivera-Santana, C (2017) Monstrous anthropology: the appearance of colonisation. Third Text 31, 567–580.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, LT (2000) Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous People. London: Zed Books.Google Scholar
Sonn, C (2008) Educating for anti-racism: producing and reproducing race and power in a university classroom. Race Ethnicity and Education 11, 155–166.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sousa-Santos, B (2014) Epistemologies of the South: Justice Against Epistemecide. Boulder: Paradigm Publishers.Google Scholar
The University of Queensland (2015) Courting Blakness: Recalibrating Knowledge in the Sandstone University. Brisbane: UQP, iv–iv.Google Scholar
Watson, I (2015) Aboriginal Peoples, Colonialism and International Law: Raw Law. Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.Google Scholar
West, C (2002) Prophesy Deliverance!: An Afro-American Revolutionary Christianity. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press.Google Scholar
Wolfe, P (2006) Settler colonialism and the elimination of the native. Journal of Genocide Research 8, 387–409.CrossRefGoogle Scholar