CES1E11-Social justice and decolonization for transformation

Dr. Nancy Carvajal, a human being under construction, helps us to understand our purpose in life as academics and as people in the making. We discussed how social justice looks from Western USA house-less peoples to displaced youth and children in rural Colombia. Interconnectedness is paramount in responding to the needs of the community and as good listeners without judging others, our roles become center to education. Decolonization not only means as a rhetorical concept but resisting Western education in which human beings are not put into boxes. Latinx, Chicanx and Indigenous epistemologies have allowed Nancy to question what has been imposed by society in terms of relationships and knowledge production. We are very diverse and our stories are important as part of a decolonial project in which teacher education is coupled with social justice lens to design courses that address struggles from our communities and that ultimately transforms students’ perceptions of life.

Bio:
With a B.A. and M.A. in language teaching, Nancy has taught applied linguistics, critical thinking, English as a Foreign Language (EFL) didactics, and EFL research methods to pre-service teachers for 10 years in Tunja Boyacá, Colombia, where she spent the majority of her life working and studying. She also teaches at the master’s program in Language Teaching at Universidad Pedagógica y Tecnológica de Colombia-UPTC.

Cite this podcast (APA):
Ortega, Y. (Producer). (2019, April 25). Chasing Encounters – Episode – 11 – The Educational Researcher as a Storyteller [Audio podcast]. Retrieved from https://soundcloud.com/chasingencounters

Sources:

Medina, N. E. C. (2015). Fleshing the spirit: spirituality and activism in Chicana, Latina, and indigenous women’s lives. Intercultural Education, 26(3), 252–254. https://doi.org/10.1080/14675986.2015.1042238