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Communication

Animating Sites of Postcolonial Education: Indigenous Knowledge and the Humanities.

Postcolonial is not only about the criticism and deconstruction of colonization and domination, but also about the reconstruction and transformation, operating as form of liberation from colonial imposition. But dismantling or effecting brutal oppression and domination are no easy targets, and as a result, can be overwhelming. So part of my aspiration is envisioning practices for transformation, acts of hope and finding light in the seeming darkness. Hence, my paper today is both the acknowledgement of the colonial system that has triggered Indigenous peoples’ trauma and disconnection with many aspects of education and themselves and an articulation of aspirations for transformation and healing through education and in particular, through a newly understood Indigenous humanities. I offer some thoughts about how this transformation translates into constructing new relations, new frames of thinking and educational processes, not as mere products or ‘wishful fictions,’ but as processes that engage each of us to rethink our present work and research in and through the Indigenous humanities.