Towards Indigenous Methods and Pathways to Critical Intimacies

Book: Implementing Transformative Student-Centered Pedagogies in the Neoliberal Academy: Constraints and Opportunities by CSMFL Publications

James Simmons
Senior Research Associate at the Knowledge & Composition Syndicate, Dover, Delaware, United States.

10.46679/9789349926912ch02
This chapter is a part of: Implementing Transformative Student-Centered Pedagogies in the Neoliberal Academy: Constraints and Opportunities
ISBN (Ebook): 978-93-49926-91-2
ISBN (Hardcover Print): 978-93-49926-11-0
ISBN (Softcover Print): 978-93-49926-31-8

© CSMFL Publications & its authors.
Published: May 05, 2026

Simmons, J. (2026). Towards Indigenous Methods and Pathways to Critical Intimacies. In F. Fovet, Implementing Transformative Student-Centered Pedagogies in the Neoliberal Academy: Constraints and Opportunities (pp 33-55). CSMFL Publications. https://dx.doi.org/10.46679/9789349926912ch02

Abstract

This chapter initially seeks to illustrate the role the academy and conventional schools have had in perpetuating the world created by neoliberal capitalism while also exploring notions of intimacy towards transformative learning environments in higher education. Focusing less on shortcomings surrounding the materials being taught, this analysis hones in on the flaws of its organizational structure and methodology (which, in turn, leads to what material will be taught). The chapter embraces a living definition of transformative learning and will discuss the contradictions of acquiring knowledge while implementing a critical pedagogy that allows for the co-creation of intimate learning spaces as caring spaces in the stifling landscape of academia. Through a process of decolonization, deschooling, and democratization, we pursue a dramatic altering of educational methods. The authors propose the idea of critical intimacy as a concept for virtual (transformative) learning inspired by Indigenous pedagogical methods, e.g., the Zapatista, the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Sem Terra/the Landless Workers’ Movement in Brazil (Freire, 1970), and the Warisata Ayllu schools (Zibechi, 2010). The chapter concludes with reflections and practical advice for an anti-oppression pedagogy within and against the neoliberal condition of higher education drawn from the authors own engagement.

Keywords: Transformative Learning, Critical Pedagogy, Neoliberal Higher Education, Decolonization, Critical Intimacy

References

  1. Abowitz, K.K. (2003). Civil Society and Educational Politics: Possibilities and Problems. In Dimitriadis, G., & Carlson, D. (eds.), Promises to Keep: Cultural Studies, Democratic Education, and Public Life (pp. 71-86). Routledge.
  2. Ambuludi, L. M. (2010). Abya Yala and the Decolonization of Democracy, Knowledge, Education, and the State: New World of Indigenous Resistance. City Lights Books.
  3. Arora, S. (2019). Admitting uncertainty, transforming engagement: towards caring practices for sustainability beyond climate change. Regional Environmental Change (2019)19, pp. 1571–1584.
  4. Bergman, c., & Montgomery, N. (2017). Joyful Militancy. Thriving Resistance in Toxic Times. AK Press.
  5. Cabral, A. (1970). National Liberation and Culture. Syracuse University Press.
  6. Changaris, M. (2014, March 18). Treating PTSD in Primary Care: A Collaborative Approach. Grand Rounds: Martinez Health Center, San Antonio, TX). Online Training Slides. https://www.slideshare.net/MCChangaris/pres-grand-rounds-ptsd-and-primary-care
  7. Chattopadhyay, S. (2019). Infiltrating the Academy through (Anarcha-)Ecofeminist Pedagogies. Capitalism Nature Socialism (30)1, pp. 31-49.
  8. Clifford, J., & Marcus, G.E. (1986). Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography. University of California Press.
  9. Cusicanqui, S. R. (2020). Ch’ixinakax utxiwa. On Practices and Discourses of Decolonization. Polity Press.
  10. DiAngelo, R. (2011). White Fragility. International Journal of Critical Pedagogy, 3 (3), 54-70.
  11. Esteva, G. (2013). 3rd International Seminar of Reflection and Analysis: Anti-Systemic Movements. Universidad de la Tierra, Chiapas. San Cristobal de las Casas, Mexico. Personal Notes, James Simmons.
  12. Fanon, F. (1967). Black Skin, White Masks. Grove Press.
  13. Freire, P. (1993 [1970]). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Continuum.
  14. Gumbs, A.P. (2020). Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals. Emergent Strategy Series. AK Press.
  15. Hinton, A. (2002). Genocide: An Anthropological Reader. Oxford: Blackwell.
  16. Hooks, Bell. (1994). Teaching to Transgress. Routledge.
  17. Hooks, Bell. (2003). Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope. Routledge.
  18. Hooks, Bell. (2006 [1994]). Love As the Practice of Freedom. In Hooks, bell (ed.) Outlaw Cultures: Resisting Representations (pp. 243-250). Routledge.
  19. Howe, K., Boal, J., & Soeiro, J. (eds.). (2019). The Routledge Companion to Theatre of the Oppressed. Routledge.
  20. Illich, I. (1970). Deschooling Society. Marion Boyars.
  21. James, J., & Gordon, E.T. (2008). Afterword: Activist Scholars or Radical Subjects? In C. R. Hale (ed.), Engaging Contradictions. Theory, Politics, and Methods of Activist Scholarship (pp. 367-373). University of California Press.
  22. Kivel, P. (1996). Uprooting Racism. New Society Publishers.
  23. Klein, N. (2008). The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. Penguin Books.
  24. Kolb, D. A. (1984). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development. Prentice-Hall. David Kolb via ResearchGate
  25. Kunzman, R., & Gaither, M. (2020). Homeschooling: An updated comprehensive survey of the research. Other Education: The Journal of Educational Alternatives.
  26. Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge University Press.
  27. Lewis, D. (1973). Anthropology and Colonialism. Current Anthropology (14)5, pp. 581-602. University of Chicago Press.
  28. McCaughan, E. J. (2012). Art and social movements: Cultural politics in Mexico and Aztlán. Duke University Press.
  29. McKittrick, K. (2021). Dear Science and Other Stories. Duke University Press.
  30. Menakem, R. (2017). My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathways to Mending our Hearts and Bodies. Central Recovery Press.
  31. Mignolo, W., & Walsh C. (eds.). (2018). On Decoloniality. Duke University Press.
  32. Montuori, A. (2005). Literature Review as Creative Inquiry: Reframing Scholarship as a Creative Process. Journal for Transformative Education 3(4), 374-393.
  33. Morris, S. M., & Stommel, J. (2018). An urgency of teachers: the work of critical digital pedagogy. Hybrid Pedagogy Inc. hybridpedagogy.org
  34. Okun, T. (n.d.). White Supremacy Culture. Dismantling Racism Works. People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond, Oakland, CA. http://www.dismantlingracism.org/uploads/4/3/5/7/43579015/whitesupcul13.pdf
  35. Povinelli, E. (2011). Economies of Abandonment: Social Belonging and Endurance in Late Liberalism. Duke University Press.
  36. Ray, B. D. (2010). Academic achievement and demographic traits of homeschool students: A nationwide study. Academic Leadership Journal, 8(1). https://scholars.fhsu.edu/alj/vol8/iss1/7/
  37. Rickford, R. (2016). We are an African people: Independent Black schools and the struggle for Silicon Valley. Oxford University Press.
  38. Riedl, R. (2013). On the biology of technostress: Literature review and research agenda. Business & Information Systems Engineering, 5(1), 18–28. https://doi.org/10.1145/2436239.2436242
  39. Said, E. (1978). Orientalism. Vintage Books.
  40. Schaef, A.W. (1998). Living in Process. Ballantine.
  41. Sedgwick, E.K. (2003). Paranoid Reading and Reparative Reading. Or, You’re So Paranoid, You Probably Think This Essay Is About You. Touching Feeling. Affect, Pedagogy, Performativity. Re-published on Brand.New.Life. (2020, May 30). https://brand-new-life.org/b-n-l/paranoid-reading-and-reparative-reading-or-youre-so-paranoid-you-probably-think-this-essay-is-about-you/
  42. Sousa Santos, B. (2007, June 29). Beyond Abyssal Thinking: From Global Lines to Ecology of Knowledges, Eurozine. http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2007-06-29-santos-en.html
  43. Sousa Santos, B. (2014). Epistemologies of the South: Justice against epistemicide. Paradigm Publishers.
  44. Southall, A. (1997). The Illusion of Tribe: Perspectives on Africa. Blackwell.
  45. Spivak, G. C. (1995). Can the Subaltern Speak? The Post-Colonial Studies Reader. Routledge.
  46. Spivak, G. C. (1999). A critique of postcolonial reason: Toward a history of the vanishing present. Harvard University Press.
  47. Spivak, G. C., & Paulson, S. (2016, July 29). Critical Intimacy: An Interview with Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. LA Review of Books. https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/critical-intimacy-interview-gayatri-chakravorty-spivak/
  48. Stommel, J., & Morris, S. M. (2018). An urgency of teachers: The work of critical digital pedagogy. Hybrid Pedagogy Inc.
  49. Todd, J. (2012). From Deschooling to Unschooling: Rethinking Anarchopedagogy after Ivan Illich. Anarchist Pedagogies. PM Press.
  50. Weeks, K. (2011). The Problem with Work: Feminism, Marxism, Antiwork Politics, and Postwork Imaginaries. Duke University Press.
  51. Zibechi, R. (2010). The Complex Decolonization of the School: New World of Indigenous Resistance. City Lights Books.

This book is available worldwide via EBSCOhost Academic Collection, EBSCO E- books, Google Play Books, Amazon, World Cat Discovery Service/OCLC, CSMFL Bookstore, and 200+ book resellers and academic content vendors.

Statement on Publication Ethics

We, at CSMFL Publications, are committed to ensure the unbiased and transparent publishing, and upholding the high standards of editorial integrity in our publications. To know more, please read our Statement on Publication Ethics, Editorial Integrity & Misconduct

[email protected]

Follow us @