Transnational women academics of colour enacting ‘pedagogy of discomfort’: positionality against a ‘pedagogy of rupture’

ABSTRACT

This paper is based on personal narratives of three transnational women academics of colour, within education faculties in Australian universities. As postcolonial subjects we focus, on providing spaces for future educators, to find multiple ways of knowing, being, and relating. Reflecting upon our pedagogic practices, we analyse the empowerment afforded by our individual positionings in facilitating a deeper understanding of social justice and inclusion in our classrooms. Using collaborative autoethnography, we outline our endeavours to raise critical queries through Freire’s notion ofconscientizacao. We unpack our own pedagogic frailties while enacting ‘pedagogy of discomfort’, as we subvert the proliferation of educational hegemonies considering it may lead to erasures of certain epistemologies.  This paper conclusively highlights our efforts to ensure the creation of conscientizacao, in ourselves and our students, while concomitantly abnegating ‘pedagogy of rupture’ and being mindful of our individual positionings and our students’ varied contexts.

KEYWORDS:

• Collaborative autoethnography
• conscientizacao
• ‘pedagogy of discomfort’
• ‘pedagogy of rupture’
• transnational women academics of colour

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.