Decolonial pedagogy through transcultural narrative inquiry in the contact zone

Authors

  • Hartej Gill
  • Vincent White University of British Columbia

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18733/C3F304

Abstract

Given the often tokenistic, ahistorical and apolitical approach to mainstream multiculturalism employed in schools, this paper theorizes transculturalism and decolonial thinking from a pedagogical perspective while also considering its potential as a transformative method of inquiry. Of particular interest to the authors is how employing transcultural narrative has the capacity to explore colonialism outside and beyond a conventional historical context in order to understand its impact on the present day. To this end, the authors discuss transcultural narrative as a form of decolonial pedagogy and inquiry, one that invites messy and often uncomfortable intro/trans-spective reflections where conflicting cultural, social and historical locations come into contact. This contact zone effectively compels unsettling dialogue between the colonizer/settler and the colonized, whiteness and color, privilege and marginalization, obstructionist and agency/ally work etc, locations which the authors argue are best understood collectively, relationally, and along a continuum rather than as a fixed binary. The authors present an example of this form of engagement (in the form of a transcultural narrative between an instructor and guest speaker), including the rationale through which it was actualized as well as some of the new inner/understandings that emerged from the inquiry experience. The potential to employ transcultural narrative as a pedagogical process of inquiry is also discussed.

Author Biography

Hartej Gill

Assistant Professor, Deparment of Educational Studies

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Published

2014-06-01

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Section

Articles