Introduction The title of this book Actionable Postcolonial Theory in Education plays with the ambivalence of meaning of the word “actionable.” According to the Oxford Dictionary, “actionable” can mean: (1) able to be done or acted on; (2) having practical value; and (3) giving suffi- cient reason to take legal action. The first two meanings, emphasized in this book, highlight the productive potential of postcolonial theory to disrupt parochialisms and prompt significant shifts in thinking and practice in education. The third meaning can be turned on its head with a view to challenge the legal structures that reproduce global injustice. Postcolonial theory is defined and interpreted in different ways, and therefore, its political project depends on the assumptions that inform such definitions and interpretations. In order to situate my own interpretations of postcolonial theory and define its use in this book, I begin with the proposition that postcolonial studies’ main contribution to social and educational thinking is that it creates the conditions for “the possibility of theorizing a non-coercive relation- ship or dialogue with the excluded ‘Other’ of Western humanism” (Gandhi 1998, 39) and for “thinking our way through, and therefore, out of the historical imbalances and cultural inequalities produced by the colonial encounter [through a] systemic critique of institutional suffering” (176). As a starting point for the realization of these pos- sibilities I offer the question: What aspects of Western/Enlightenment humanism (or other discourses) could stop or prevent a noncoercive relationship or dialogue among different ways of being in the world? The response of postcolonial theory, as presented in this book, is an examination of the hostility to difference embedded in the norma- tive teleological project of Western/Enlightenment humanism, which is the basis of dominant Western epistemologies. From this perspec- tive, the investment of Western/Enlightenment humanism in rational2 Actionable Postcolonial Theory in Education unanimity (ic. universal consensus through rational thought) in regard to conceptualizations of humanity, human nature, progress, and justice only produces opportunities for relationships and dialogue that are “structured, from the very beginning, in favour of certain outcomes” (Chakrabarty 1995, 757). The ethnocentric privileging of Western rationality (as a universal form of reasoning) and of dialecti- cal thought (as a universal form of deliberative engagement) establish specific parameters of validity and recognition of what can be known and how that is to be communicated. These parameters are intimately associated with aspirations for unanimity and consensus and make it impossible for other forms of thinking, knowing, being, and com- municating to “disagree” or even to make intelligible contributions in Western-led and structured sites of conversation. This creates a tension where challenging the terms of dialectical engagement can acquire the tone of a heretic challenge to humanity, progress, and justice itself, which, not surprisingly, often results in the challenge being discarded as abnormal, marginal, or irrelevant. As a result, difference can be either discarded as barbaric, wild, and her- etic, or be domesticated or “made similar” in order to be accommo- dated as a colorful (or exotic) variation of the dominant epistemology within the boundaries of the predefined rules of validation. As such parameters of knowledge-validity and modes of communication are disseminated through modern institutions and forms of organization, the hegemony of the Western/Enlightenment humanist epistemology and its blindness to other epistemologies become naturalized in mod- ern social life. Thus, in response to my first question, the hegemonic ethnocentrism of Western/Enlightenment humanism becomes the central target of postcolonial critiques in their attempt to enable the emergence of noncoercive “ethical solidarities.” In terms of ethnocentrism (defined here as an unacknowledged and naturalized desire to possess and produce universal and unequivo- cal knowledge), the focus of postcolonial critiques often lies on the anthropocentric, all-knowing and self-sufficient Cartesian subject of Western/Enlightenment humanism who “violently negates material and historical alterity/otherness in its narcissistic desire to always see the world in its own self image” (Gandhi 1998, 39). As the Cartesian subject projects his knowledge as unequivocal, complete, and uni- versal, the foreclosure of his epistemic choices and his “indifference to difference” (ibid., 47) create a form of blindness where Otherness is conceived as a deviance that threatens his identity as a universal knower, creating anxieties that often prompt repression and differentIntroduction 3 forms of violence toward the Other. In its attempt to interrogate eth- nocentrism, postcolonialism works in the agonistic space between the Cartesian subject and his Other, calling for, (1)a recognition of the limitations of Western/Enlightenment thought, and of the necessity to understand historical violences, and (2) the construction of knowl- edge and alterity beyond such limitations. In terms of global hegemony (defined as the power to enforce, normalize and naturalize local ethnocentric perspectives on a global scale), the emphasis is on how a local (European/Western) epistemol- ogy came to occupy a position where it could project itself as global and universal (through institutions such as schools and universities and modes of organization such as nation-states and democracies): how the sovereignty of the modern intellect has been established in ways that give it “the power to define and make definitions stick” (Bauman 1991, 9). The global dissemination of the imposed univer- salization of Western/Enlightenment ideals and aspirations places the focus of postcolonial analyses firmly on European colonialism and its material and epistemic violences. Postcolonial critiques engage the political interests at work in processes of knowledge production, with particular attention to the production of knowledge about the Other and the (Western/European) self. In terms of moving beyond coercion, postcolonialism champions a form of solidarity enacted as an ethical imperative toward the Other (Spivak 2004) where the Other is recognized as having a right to funda- mentally disagree. This type of solidarity starts with an understanding of epistemic arrogance and a call for a conceptualization of inter- and codependence based on individual/collective, social/cultural, ontic and epistemic insufficiencies with a view to recognize the productive (and nondeterminable) value of our common differences (see chapter eleven). Ethical solidarities challenge the normative project of una- nimity, consensus, and singular rationality of Western/Enlightenment humanism enabling the emergence of a kind of contestatory dialogue where knowledge is perceived as situated, partial, and provisional and where dissensus serves as a safeguard against fundamentalisms, forc- ing participants to engage with the origins and limitations of each oth- ers’ and, specially of their own systems of production of knowledge and sanctioned ignorance (Said 1978). In this sense, it does not aim to delegitimize or discard Western/Enlightenment humanism, but to engage its limitations in an attempt to transform and pluralize it from within. Ethical solidarities, far from promoting paralysis of analysis or absolute relativism, focus on the possibility of the contextual and4 Actionable Postcolonial Theory in Education ongoing co-construction of meaning that can happen when people care to know—as opposed to “dare to know”—of/about/with each other (Gandhi, 1999). In my pedagogical work, I have often used a metaphor to illus- trate the problematic nature of globally hegemonic ethnocentrism and the possibility of ethical solidarities. I invite readers to construct this metaphor with me. First, imagine a field of ripe corn cobs; harvest the corn cobs in your field; take out the corn cobs’ husks and display the corn cobs in front of you. Next, compare the corn cobs in the picture in your mind with the photograph on the cover of this book. The multicolored corn cobs in the photograph are real and accessible in certain regions of Latin America.’ When this visualization exercise is performed in places other than such regions, invariably people in the audience notice that the corn cobs imagined by most people are yel- low and more or less uniform. Some people even question whether the photograph has been digitally altered to produce corn cobs of impos- sible colors. The prevalence of the yellow corn cob in people’s imagi- nation and their “surprise” at the existence of multicolored varieties can be used to illustrate the institutionalization of the globally hege- monic ethnocentrism of the Western/Enlightenment epistemology and the implications of Cartesian subjectivities described before: the yellow corn cob, as a Cartesian subject, projects his local worldview as global, foreclosing the local roots of his epistemological and onto- logical choices. Many people argue that this ethnocentric practice in itself is not exclusive to Western/Enlightenment humanism. However, when such practice happens in a context of imperial or colonial rela- tions, where the yellow corn cob has the power to define and control the production of meaning (i.e., define meanings that stick), and has control over the establishment of laws and institutions, and the dis- tribution of wealth and labour, not only in its local context, but on a global scale, I would argue that the global hegemonic force of the yellow corn cob’s ethnocentrism puts it in a different category from other ethnocentrisms. The capacity for harm through epistemic domi- nance, epistemic violence and “epistemicide” (Santos 2007) and the vulnerability to such practices are severely unevenly distributed on a global scale among yellow and multicolored corn cobs. The metaphor can also be used to predict the implications of the ambivalent relationship (Bhabha 1994) between the yellow corn cob and the multicolored varieties of corn cobs. Postcolonial studies (and other theories that focus on institutional suffering) may be deployed to identify four important tendencies that arise as a result of a yellowIntroduction 5 corn cob’s ethnocentric global hegemony. First, it is the tendency of yellow corn cobs to see other varieties as deficient or lacking (i.e., defi- cit theorization of difference), which often generates the desire to help multicolored corn cobs to turn yellow (.e., paternalism). Second, it is the tendency of some yellow corn cobs to see the color of other cobs as something superficial, often relying on the maxim “we are all the same under the kernel skin” (i.c., depoliticization and ahistoricism), which allows the yellow corn cobs to “forget” their cultural roots and project their “substance” or “essence” (as well as their natural- ized desires and aspirations) as the substance and essence, desires and aspirations universal to all corn cobs (i.e., we are all human and aspire to similar notions of progress and justice). Third, it is the tendency of many multicolored corn cobs that have been historically and continu- ally exposed to such treatment to see themselves through the eyes of yellow corn cobs: to aspire to become yellow and to see themselves and other multicolored varieties as lacking and deficient (i.e., inter- nalized oppression). Fourth, it is the tendency of some multicolored corn cobs to resist yellow ethnocentric global hegemony and catego- rizations by reaffirming their “color” in reversed-ethnocentric (and often locally hegemonic) ways, speaking back to power using the lan- guage and tools of the dominant variety, but remaining trapped in the logic of the yellow corn cob. Although this strategy is often successful in providing a critique of dominance, it generally fails to enable the emergence of alternatives to ethnocentrism and hegemony. In this sense, it is important to emphasize that, although an analy- sis of the ethnocentric global hegemony of Western/Enlightenment humanism is key to an understanding of the unequal distribution of value, wealth, and labour among different social groups, the yellow corn cob metaphor can also be used to refer to processes of normal- ization and unequal power relations within any social group. Used in this way, the metaphor helps to bring the complexity of issues of representation to the fore and to highlight the problems of homog- enization and essentialism that often emerge in simplistic analyses of power and oppression. It also highlights the dynamic nature of the production of culture: rather than seeing varieties of corn cobs as static and unchanging, it shows that different varieties are always in negotiation: they change in their interaction with each other and with their environment. In this way, the location of the problem shifts from the yellow corn cobs themselves (which are a legitimate and chang- ing variety) to the arrogance of ethnocentricism and the knowledge/ power production of global hegemony.6 Actionable Postcolonial Theory in Education In pedagogical terms, the metaphor can be used to refer to the pro- cess of equipping both yellow and multicolored corn cobs to become sensitized to difference: to unlearn their (possible) epistemological arrogance, to learn to listen beyond their tendency to project and appropriate, to relate to Other corn cobs in ways that legitimize dif- ferent ways of knowing and being, and to engage in ethical solidari- ties without the need for consensus, a common cause or a common identity. This kind of solidarity involves a double recognition: first the recognition of the Other as equal when ideas of superiority threaten the relationship; second, the recognition of the Other as different when the push towards “sameness” threatens the other's difference and ability to disagree (Santos 2002). The first recognition of equal- ity works as a safeguard against a yellow corn cob’s historically and socially framed desire to see itself as the norm and to enlighten, edu- cate, know, study or civilize other corn cobs. The second works against the yellow corn cob’s tendency to project its own ideals, desires, and aspirations as natural to all corn cobs. In its stance toward an unco- ercive relationship or dialogue with the Other who has been histori- cally at the receiving end of epistemic violence, this pedagogy entails a provisional paradoxical construction of a general epistemology that announces the impossibility of general epistemologies (i.e., ahistori- cal and de-contextualized knowledge claims) (Santos 2007). This is enacted through a conceptualization of knowledge as socially, culturally, and historically situated: no knowledge is ever only individ- ual knowledge (as it relies on situated collective referents). Therefore, as every knowledge is based on ontological and metaphysical choices that foreclose other choices, every knowledge is also an ignorance of other knowledges produced in different contexts. From this perspective, knowledge is understood as a process (not a product) that is constantly renegotiated in encounters with difference and every knowledge snap- shot is at the same time legitimate (in its context of production), provi- sional, and insufficient. By exploring different knowledge systems and their limits, one can cast a fresh glance at one’s own context of knowl- edge production and be in a better position to redefine the terms of knowledge construction. This redefinition is enabled by the expansion of one’s frames of reference through the ethical imperative to work with the Other upholding the principles of mutuality, reciprocity, and equality (which means keeping one’s own learned epistemic arrogance in check and working without guarantees). This book proposes that a postcolonial educational project is about expanding frames of reference while upholding an ethical stanceIntroduction 7 toward the Other: opening the imagination to different varieties of corn cobs while acknowledging their status as situated producers of knowledge who have an equal worth and a right to signify differently. However, this book applies insights from postcolonial theory (as well as other theories) as tools-for-thinking rather than as descriptions-of- truth. This distinction forces the proposed postcolonial educational project to be open to different perspectives and interpretations of truth/reality. Rather than creating a manifesto that noble “progres- sive” educators can subscribe to, the intention is to invite educators to a type of scholarship that engages with both the gifts and limita- tions of any theory in an attempt to imagine dialogue, relationships, and education “otherwise” beyond the confines of dominance, eth- nocentrism, and coercion that have characterized institutionalized processes of modern schooling and education in general (including “progressive” strands). The arguments in this book are offered as par- tial, provisional, and situated contributions to an ongoing debate that is not conceived through teleological lenses: it does not aim to reach a specific stable condition of harmony and it does not promise heroic or salvationist glories at the end of a revolutionary struggle. Instead, it proposes a recognition that the work of moving toward mutual- ity, reciprocity, and equality needs to be recognized as an ongoing process: any proposed solution will generate different problems, and the struggle to engage with new problems is a condition for context- responsive continuous (mutual and reciprocal) learning and (co-)con- struction of new realities The Potential Contribution and Limitations of Postcolonial Theory in Educational Research and Practice I place postcolonialism in the agonistic interface in-between unequal systems of knowledge/power production that have been in tension. Thus, I find it useful (although also problematic) to think that post- colonial theory can be relevant in different degrees and for different purposes to at least five different political communities: 1. those in the global North (and in the north of the South) oversocialized in the ethnocentric hegemony of Eurocentric modernity and benefiting, from it (yellow corn cobs who cannot imagine other corn cobs);8 Actionable Postcolonial Theory in Education 2. those in the south of the global North and in the global South aspiring to benefit from the ethnocentric hegemony through voluntary social- ization and defence of Eurocentric modernity (multicolored corn cobs who want to be yellow); 3. those in the south of the global South and the global North suffering the effects of ethnocentric global hegemonies and fighting to reassert their right to self-governance or self-determination (multicolored corn cobs struggling to become visible in the yellow corn cob’s imagination in order to disrupt their violence and dominance); 4, those bearing the brunt of the violence of ethnocentric hegemonies whose main priority is survival and who cannot afford to be engaged in political mobilizations (multicolored and “crooked” yellow corn cobs fighting predatory Darwinist extermination); 5. those (translators and catalysts) in-between political communities who both benefit from and are critical of ethnocentric global hegemonies and who aspire to use their privilege/lines of social mobility in the work against the grain of ethnocentrism and hegemony (both yellow and multicolored corn cobs) Postcolonial theory is arguably most useful for individuals in the fifth community, working with the first, second, third, and fourth communities. It enables the design of pedagogical processes that may prompt a “disenchantment with the epistemic privilege of moder- nity” (Mignolo 2002b), offering an opportunity for the first and second communities to expand their imagination, to rearrange their desires, to establish more nuanced relationships of solidarity, and to pluralize the future of all communities. As a result, the third and fourth communities would benefit indirectly from the possibility of nonantagonistic, nonmanipulative, or nonhegemonic support and understanding for their struggles through better-informed and more ethical relationships grounded in the principle of solidarity (rather than charity, benevolence, or arrogant “progressive” triumphalism). In terms of political-pedagogical possibilities for the third commu- nity, although the strand of postcolonial theory represented in this book can complement existing critiques and offer new tools of inter- nal critique that may address the emergence of ethnocentrism and hegemonies in resistance struggles themselves, it does not provide, or aim to provide, a coherent project of emancipation that can command political mobilization around a consensual common cause. Therefore, for such ends, it needs to be thought through alongside other anti- oppressive theories.Introduction 9 My Contribution to the Debate This book seeks to add to the body of literature that highlights the potential contributions of postcolonial theory to educational theory, research, and curricular practices (see for example, Hickling-Hudson, Matthews, and Woods 2004; Cannella and Viruru 2004; Kanu 2006; Coloma 2009). It offers an overview of a discursive strand of postco- lonial theory and provides examples of its application and operation- alization in educational research and practice. This work is organized into three parts: (1) postcolonialism and postcolonial theories; (2) actioning postcolonial theory in educational research; and (3) action- ing postcolonial pedagogies. Part 1 outlines key concerns and dis- cussions in the field of postcolonial theory (chapter one) focusing on the contributions of Homi Bhabha (chapter two), and Gayatri Spivak (chapter three) to educational debates. It also offers a comparison between a discursive strand of postcolonialism and three other theo- ries of institutional suffering: decolonial studies, indigenous studies, and critical race theory (chapter four). The second part of the book provides examples from educational research in the form of analyses of policy and practice. It starts with a contextualization of research processes highlighting methodological issues that may arise in the use of postcolonial theory in educational research and the types of outcomes that could be expected from a postcolonial analysis (chap- ter five). Two analyses of policy and three analyses of educational practice related to global and development education are presented in the subsequent chapters. The first analysis emphasizes problematic discourses related to liberal humanism in curriculum policy (chap- ter six). The second focuses on neoliberal agendas driving policies of internationalization of higher education (chapter seven). The analyses of practice offer different examples of paternalistic constructions of the Other: the Other who validates our supremacy (chapter eight); the Other who should be grateful for our efforts (chapter nine): and the Other who desperately needs our leadership (chapter ten). The third part of the book illustrates how postcolonial theory can be put to work (although not unproblematically) in educational practice. The first chapter provides an outline for the principles of a postcolonial pedagogy and contextualizes the projects and processes presented in the subsequent chapters (chapter eleven). The Creative Commons International initiatives “Open Spaces for Dialogue and Enquiry” and “Through Other Eyes,” which focus on a relativization of Western10 Actionable Postcolonial Theory in Education knowledge production and engagement with different knowledge sys- tems, are described as illustrations of funded high-impact projects that were based on insights from postcolonial theory (chapters twelve and thirteen). The last chapter of part 3 presents an auto-ethnographic account of my ongoing “wrestling with meaning and life” as a mother of two immigrant children who often “bring home” the complexities of re-negotiating the colonial encounter, and help me “earn my the- ory” through the pain (and joy) of being constantly undone (chapter fourteen).