Decolonial Teaching + Learning Seminar Series

One of the key values emerging from our ongoing strategic planning is a commitment to decolonial and social justice principles. One result is the establishment of the Postdoctoral Fellowship in Social Justice and Decolonization, which was held by Dr. Nawal Musleh-Motut.

Dr. Musleh-Motut’s postdoctoral project, Creating Decolonial and Just Futurities in Postsecondary Education, highlights the dangers and counters the consequences of institutional performances of equity, diversity, and inclusion that support the neocolonial and neoliberal status quo by creating decolonial and just educational futurities¹ via teaching and learning. One major component of this project is the two-part seminar series Decolonial Teaching & Learning (DTL), which was piloted in 2022/2023 (Part I in Fall 2022 and Part II in Spring 2023).

¹Creating decolonial and just futurities requires imagining what a decolonial and justice future might look like and then working to create that reality in the present using the pathways, tools, and resources currently available to us (Harjo 2019).

Decolonial Teaching & Learning sought to begin healing the colonial wound at the heart of the university by integrating the following three elements of “decolonial thinking and doing” (Mignolo and Walsh, 2018, p.8) into the scholarship and practice of teaching and learning:

1. identifying, deconstructing, and delinking from the colonial matrix of power;
2. re-existence and restorying of negated and/or silenced ways of knowing and being, cultural traditions, pedagogies, and/or experiences;
3. linking decolonial thinking (theory) with decolonial doing (praxis) and vice versa.

While this decolonial approach acknowledges connections between global experiences of and resistance to colonialism, it prioritizes the local. As such, Decolonial Teaching & Learning focused on the historical and contemporary manifestations of colonial education in BC and Canada, while prioritizing the knowledge, stories, pedagogies, and experiences of local and national Indigenous educators, students, knowledge keepers, community leaders, and/or elders.

Decolonial Teaching & Learning supported SFU educators as they explored current and future decolonial pathways to teaching and learning by:

• uncovering the historical colonial system that underpins the current everyday workings of the university, as well its harmful consequences for IBPOC (Indigenous, Black, and People of Colour) faculty and students; 
• encouraging deep inquiry into and reflection on settler privilege and responsibility;
• supporting a deeper understandings of the TRC’s educational Calls to Action, as well as the processes of decolonization, indigenization, and reconciliation;
• providing the opportunity to actively listen to, learn from, and work with local and national Indigenous educators, students, knowledge keepers, community leaders, and/or elders;
• showcasing decolonial and Indigenous approaches to teaching and learning;
• highlighting critical and intersectional social justice approaches that support decolonial teaching and learning, and vice versa;
• collectively workshopping ideas for creating current and future decolonial pathways for teaching and learning;
• undertaking inquiry into and reflective evaluation of decolonial teaching and learning principles and practices;
• building ethical and reciprocal relationships, partnerships, collaborations, and/or communities of practice dedicated to decolonial teaching and learning.