Fugitive future making: Empowering voices, amplifying sociopolitical imaginations, and designing transformative futures

Abstract

In U.S. school systems, anti-Blackness and ableism are organizing principles that constitute a system of exclusion through which to dismiss complex intersectional identities of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) students with and without disabilities. Racialized outcome disparities in the identification of disability and school disciplinary actions are material consequences of the historically sedimented White and ableist legacy that pathologizes and criminalizes BIPOC students. To dismantle the current schooling system that perpetuates racial stratification and injustice, educational scholars and practitioners have collectively dreamed of learning as fugitive action in which they restore human dignity of BIPOC students and communities and envision alternative futures with them. Learning as fugitive action is a subversive approach that not only unveils the oppressive systems of schooling but also restructures them to achieve racial equity and disability justice. As part of the effort to facilitate collective fugitive learning at school, a community-driven systemic design intervention called Learning Lab was developed. Within the Learning Lab, school community members, particularly those from historically marginalized communities, collaborate to imagine possible realities and design a new support system accordingly. Through this collective fugitive learning, they actively address the disproportionality of their BIPOC youth in special education placements and school disciplinary outcomes. The aim of this essay is to explore the potential of Learning Lab as a space for fugitive future-making and to demonstrate how it can be used to dismantle oppressive structures and design transformative school systems.