A Pedagogical Response to Decoloniality: Decolonial Atmospheres and Rising Subjectivity

Abstract

The neoliberal academy is, at its core, an apparatus through which coloniality sustains itself. Despite the academy's self-promotion as a catalyzing institution that prepares students to become agents of social change and transformation, some students and faculty experience it as a crucible of oppression. In this essay I trace the beginnings of a project I was a part of in which I worked alongside students who demanded that a psychology program in the university be transformed into a force for decoloniality. I reflect on some of the conditions of coloniality that students actively resisted at one college and that exist elsewhere within the university. Juxtaposed against manifestations of coloniality in the university are synopses of student's experience of them. These synopses provide insight into why students have chosen to resist coloniality in the academy. I also outline a pedagogical response to coloniality that I created given students' desire for decoloniality. Finally, and with the permission of student artists, two liberation psychology student art projects are included to make visible the rise in subjectivity that becomes possible when a decolonial atmosphere is created within the university.

Keywords: Coloniality; Decolonial atmospheres; Decoloniality; Subjectivity; Teaching.