Emancipatory pedagogies: fostering political engagement through action

Abstract

ABSTRACT Every electoral cycle, thousands of canvassers knock on doors to encourage strangers to vote. Many volunteers come from communities with low levels of participation. Scholars have yet to explore how community organizations recruit and sustain their canvassing teams. This article explores that process using an in-depth study of canvasser training and administration by two grassroots community organizations in California in November 2014. We argue that these trainings and collective interactions should be conceptualized as educational spaces utilizing pedagogies that are designed to enhance canvassers’ sense of political efficacy and empowerment. Consistent with the critical pedagogy literature, we find that an effective pedagogy within these contexts must be tailored to the canvasser population and need to help canvassers establish and maintain a sense of collective purpose over time and provide the scaffolding for both. We contend this direct action is a form of emancipatory learning that allows participating canvassers to relearn their position of power vis-à-vis the polity and gain a more profound sense of political purpose and empowerment. We highlight an area of civic engagement not often seen as a learning environment and offer two avenues for future research in this novel context.