Haki/pláticas ∼ testimonios/shahadat: Arabyya feminista decolonial praxis

Abstract

The authors share how their Arabyyat and Chicana feminist pedagogies and methodologies, haki/pláticas ∼ testimonios/shahadat, contribute to a decolonial praxis. We center haki/pláticas ∼ testimonios/shahadat and introduce what we term as “Arabyya feminista decolonial praxis” in education as an act of linguistic and epistemic disobedience. Our work, pedagogies and methodologies, advance the esthetic dimensions of our Arabyya feminista praxis. We delineate how in merging theory and practice is intuitively guided by our her/histories, sensibilities, and ways of being for/with each other. Coming from la Mirada al Sur, our transnational collaboration is captured in our testimonios/shahadat and displayed in the poetics and art that sprung via our haki/pláticas. We conclude that this work is needed more than ever and with a brief analysis of the esthetics of these methodologies as our Arabyya feminista decolonial praxis.

Notes

1 The ∼ (tilde) between pláticas ∼ testimonios serves as a bridge, our process of reflexión, that allows us to “cross the spatial borders that often separate lo academico de lo personal” (Delgado Bernal, 2009, p. 5)—our pláticas allow us to desahogar our testimonios" (Flores Carmona et al., 2018, p. 51).

2 See Flores Carmona, Hamzeh, Bejarano, Hernández Sánchez, & El Ashmawi’s article Pláticas ∼ Testimonios: Reimagining Methodological Borderlands for Solidarity and Resilience in Academia.

3 From Arabic dictionaries, Lisan Al ‘Arab and Al Sihah fil Lugha.

4 Also transliterated as sumud.

5 Olive oil and roasted thyme in Arabic. This is a Palestinian staple food that reflects Palestinians’ labor and love for their land/soil. It also reflects their sumoud, steadfastness, and resilience, given that the Israelis uproot Palestinian olive trees to build settlements or the separation wall, and prohibit Palestinians from harvesting the wild zaatar on barb-wired military-confiscated land.

6 In 1948, the Israeli Zionist settler colonization of Palestine resulting in “the mass eviction of the overwhelming majority of the Indigenous Palestinian people who were expelled and forcefully dispossessed from their homes/lands…Palestinians have termed this al-Nakba (catastrophe) which signifies the theft/loss of their land and the establishment of the Israeli settler-colonial state…[In 1967] what was left of historic Palestine…became occupied by Israel. Palestine remains colonized… while exercising routine violence through massacres, mass incarceration, targeted assassinations, restricted movement, home demolitions, sexual violence, and implementing racist apartheid policies that fragments the Palestinian population into Bantustans” (Tabar & Desai, 2017, p. ii–iii).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Manal Hamzeh

Manal Hamzeh is a Professor in the Department of Gender & Sexuality Studies at New Mexico State University. Her current research focuses on Arabyyah feminist methodologies, particularly on the shahadat (testimonios) of Egyptian women resisting state violence since the January 25th Egyptian Revolution.

Judith Flores Carmona

Judith Flores Carmona is Associate Professor/Faculty Fellow for the Honors College and interim Director of Chicano Programs at New Mexico State University. Her research interests include critical pedagogy, Chicana/Latina feminist theory, critical race feminism, social justice education, and testimonio methodology and pedagogy.

Ma. Eugenia Hernández Sánchez

Ma. Eugenia Hernández Sánchez is a full-time professor at the Autonomous University of Ciudad Juarez UACJ, Art Department. Her research interest focus on transnacional feminista pedagogies, Latinamerican testimonio, art-based research, youth migration and radical friendship.

Dolores Delgado Bernal

Dolores Delgado Bernal is Chair and Professor in the Department of Chicana(o) and Latina(o) Studies at California State University, Los Angeles. As a scholar-activist, she has worked for 30 years with schools and communities to disrupt the mis-education of Chicanx/Latinx students. Much of her teaching and scholarship has focused on feminista methodological approaches to research and social justice.

Cynthia Bejarano

Cynthia Bejarano is a Regents Professor in the Department of Gender & Sexuality Studies/Interdisciplinary Studies at New Mexico State University. Her publications and research interests focus on the intersections and interstices of border violence, migration and immigration issues, and gender violence at the U.S.-Mexico border.