Decolonising educational relations in geography classrooms Geographical Association

De/colonising educational relations in geography classrooms Geographical Association Annual Conference April 2021 Fatmakhanu (fatima) Pirbhai-Illich, University of Regina Fran Martin, University of Exeter

• I know what colonisation means • I know what decolonisation means • I understand the difference between colonisation and coloniality

Forsaken

Who am I?

Situating ourselves – identity and colonialism Histories Colonialism Geographies Connection to land Identities Citizenship Cultures

Locating identities Who are you? What brought you to this space? Breakout Rooms

https: //everydayorientalism. wordpress. com/2020/04/29/teaching-orientalism-through-art-practice-othered-the-virtual-exhibit/ European nations and colonial discourses • Alastair Pennycook (1998): colonialism is not simply the context in which European colonial nations' cultures were imposed upon colonised nations; it is also the context that produced discourses which have lasting effects in large domains of Western thought and culture. • Colonialism: European expansion; full or partial political control of other countries; economic exploitation • Coloniality: Underlying logic of colonialism; racialized, ‘objective’ categorization; hierarchical; binary, oppositional constructions of ‘self’ and ‘Other’ • Colonial discourses persist today through language and how it is used to shape our lives culturally and materiality

Coloniality of power and its mechanisms Relations Erasure Appropriation White supremacy Language Land Superiority Culture Knowledges Domination Mind Bodies Control Body Cultures Possession Self Resources Exploitation Spirit Paternalism Saviourism

Colonial geographies: Spaces, places and boundaries Power , identity & belonging: social-materialspiritual relations 9

Colonial geographies and the white possessive • The significance of property ownership as a prerequisite to citizenship was tied to the British notion that only people who owned the country, not merely those who lived in it, were eligible to make decisions about it (Ladson-Billings, 2009, p. 25). • The British concept of divine right to sovereignty validated their claim to ownership of the land to imagine Australia as a white possession (Moreton. Robinson, 2015). Aileen Moreton-Robinson 2015. 10

Colonial geographies: Economic and epistemological appropriation

The coloniality of Geography: categorization and fragmentation Disciplinary knowledge Human geography Cultural geography Social geography Physical geography Geomorphology Environmental geography Climatology Ecosystems Sustainability

Colonial discourses in geography Developed-developing-underdeveloped Civilised-uncivilised-exotic Democratic-undemocratic Superior-inferior Wealthy-poor Donor-recipient • Positioning of Africa, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan • Positioning of USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand • Homogenisation

The education system The coloniality of geography education The discipline The curriculum The classroom

Geography and British Fundamental Values How is the nation and national identity imagined in this image? Pirbhai-Illich & Martin (2020). Fundamental British Values: Geography’s contribution to understanding difference. Primary Geographer, issue 103, p. 23 -25. https: //www. geography. org. uk/Journal. Issue/fb 40 ca 15 -4 c 56 -4 e 3 b-bbdac 774 b 8487 bfd

Classroom teaching & de/coloniality Colonial educational relations De/colonial educational relations • Often object-focused • Potential violence – epistemic and ontological harm • Categorisation and separation (subject silos; knowledge hierarchies) • Homogenisation • Critical relationality • Intersubjective, interconnected, interdependent • In relation with (not to) • Invitation & hospitality • Space, place and boundaries

Working with invitation and hospitality Importance of history: Ways of being / orientations: • How might you teach someone whose community has had negative relationships with your community in the past? • Being ‘with’ • How might you teach someone whose community has been forced by your community to be and know according to your ways rather than theirs? • Humility • Inviting plural ways of being, knowing and doing • Being attentive to ones own ‘translations’ • Respect • Reciprocity …

Creating spaces of belonging

De/colonizing educational relationships: Teacher identities and positioning • Who am I? How do the intersecting dimensions of my identity affect who I am and how I teach? (race, ethnicity, socio-economic status, religion, gender, ability, sexual orientation). • To what extent do my choices over what and how I teach unconsciously reflect my own identity? (unconscious bias) • To what extent do I consciously invite the ways of being that are different to my identity into the classroom? • How can I create learning spaces of belonging rather than those that are alienating? • How can I move away from the divisive (colonial) ways of thinking that marginalise and disenfranchise different groups?

Geography’s complicity in colonialism and coloniality _________________________ The ongoing coloniality of geographical knowledge production is not only widely accepted, it is also now every geographer's problem. ” Critical debates around the meaning and shape of decolonial geographical education and knowledge production must be kept alive. Not only must we not stop debating decolonial education, but we must also make sure to translate our debates into educational praxis. (p. 9) To what extent are we, as students, teachers, researchers, lecturers, and professors, relating to and working with each other every day in a way that is underpinned by lessons learned from colonial oppressions and grassroots decolonial struggles? (p. 10) Marcin Stanek (2019). Decolonial Education and Geography: Geography Compass 13(12), p. 1 -13.

• I know what colonisation means • I know what decolonisation means • I understand the difference between colonisation and coloniality • I have some ideas about what to do next