Illustration by @BLKmoodyboi on Instagram
Our Vision
For decades, students, educators and activists across the globe have demanded movement towards decolonising the university. As a project situated within these demands, we are driven by diverse dreams in which education can be a catalyst for liberation and the university a space for social change. We honour and acknowledge the dreams and work of those who were and are on this journey. They laid the foundation and sustain the work that we are doing now.
We are a student-staff collaboration committed to centering student voices in our values, beliefs and experiences and in using these to dismantle contemporary forms of coloniality in curricula, relationships and research. Student-staff partnerships are pivotal to this kind of work as they co-produce knowledge; develop new and critical ways of understanding disciplines; and undertake sustained collaboration, experimentation and dialogue. Ultimately, partnerships as collective practices enrich our teaching, learning and research experiences. Our aim is to transform rather than reform and to decolonise rather than to diversify. In rethinking curricula, relationships and research and, at the heart of this our ways of understanding knowledge, we are reimagining our worlds as we know them.
As educators and students we must question, critique and engage with decolonising and anti-racist practices. This can be challenging so we are committed to growing and learning individually and collectively. Taking a pluriversal approach, our work always considers how we can recentre subaltern voices as well as the narratives and perspectives that accompany them through story-telling. Therefore the tools we offer here are meant to encourage thinking and to foster the new types of relationships that are needed to effectively transform our pedagogies. They are an offering to those that are engaging in this kind of work. We recognise that decolonising and anti-racist practices look and feel different in different spaces. The resources in this project are not meant to be prescriptive but are offered as tools to use in your own journeys of growth and transformation.
Project Strategy and Objectives: 2023-2028
In 2023, the project’s steering group members developed a strategy we named: ‘Dreaming, dismantling and decolonising: Pedagogies for Social Justice Project plan 2023-2028’. The document outlines our vision, values, context, and the strategic objectives that will guide our work and action over the next five years. This strategy is not just a roadmap for our team but a testament to our commitment to an iterative dreaming process in which our focus is on process and relationship. You are welcome to read the full document that is available for download below.
We commissioned independent artist, Raquel Durán, to produce a visual version of our strategy. It is available to view and download below.