Decolonial Praxis beyond the Classroom: Reflecting on Race and Violence

Abstract

When South African universities exploded in widespread student protest demanding equal access to higher education and decolonizing the curriculum, two questions plagued activists and researchers: What do we teach students in this context? and How do we teach students in a manner that is responsive to the context? Regular teaching and learning proved insufficient to help students reflect on their situation and were even met with suspicion and hostility (Settler, 2019). This chapter will discuss the production of a series of public performances and memorials through which students were able to reflect on their social reality, and how a monthly on-campus Salon afforded academics and students the opportunity for deliberation in a flattened, non-hierarchical and decolonizing space. Over the course of several years, members of the Salon curated performances that emerged as a decolonial praxis (Mignolo and Walsh, 2018) in response to their experiences of alienation in the university. These curated performances and memorials allowed students (a) to reflect meaningfully on violence, resistance, and the racialized self, (b) to trouble ideas about the purpose of the university, and finally (c) to expand our conceptions about teaching and learning by performatively incorporating our bodies, histories, indigenous practices into a kind of decolonial praxis that opened new possibilities for exchange and reflection.