I am the ‘evil other’ (and so are you): healing historic divisions that breed public mass gun violence in the US

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper conceptualises one possible antidote to the conditions that produce public mass gun violence (PMGV) in the United States. I begin by illuminating how PMGV is a backlash to the nation’s ‘founding’ on the violent divisions of colonisation and coloniality. I then inquire: If PMGV is a reflection of a deep societal wound, what methodologies and educational considerations can we engage to prevent violence and promote healing? I explore an ecology of knowledges (EoK), cognitive justice, and transdisciplinarity to envisage how Other ways of knowing already figure into pedagogical practices that alleviate violence and create anti-oppressive societies. These theories unsettle Western and colonial logics that rely on contradictory thinking (e.g. good or evil). The theories also encourage us to get to know the ‘other’ in ourselves in order to get to know the ‘other’ in the disaffected, work with him, and soothe his desires for violence before they erupt.