Decolonial underground pedagogy: Decolonizing education in subcultural teaching and learning

Abstract

This thesis seeks to deepen understanding of decolonial and decolonizing education, or approaches to teaching and learning which holds that social justice requires the dismantling of Eurocentric imperialism and its evolving forms. Literature on decolonizing education, informal learning, and subculture studies coalesce into a theory of decolonial underground pedagogy, a conceptual frame that enables observations of how minority-led subcultures foster critical consciousness and decolonial action by emphasizing informal learning, community engagement, and nonhierarchical relationships. Through a constellation of methodological considerations including decolonizing methodologies, autoethnography, close reading, and the suppositionless Philippine methodology of pakapa-kapa, I examine decolonizing experiences rooted in my sustained and active participation in three minority-led subcultures: punk rock, skateboarding, and unschooling. This thesis’s analytical scope spans three continents and reflects two decades constructing a diasporic Philippine identity rooted in building horizontal alliances with racialized and Indigenous peoples instead of assimilating to the dominant culture. These considerations situate this thesis’s approach to decolonization in an undertheorized vantage point - the Philippines and its diaspora. I argue that Philippine perspectives are valuable for understanding colonization, decolonization, and social justice because they require a consideration of the ongoing consequences of five hundred years of invasion as well as contemporary conditions marked by neocolonial exploitation. With these conceptual and methodological considerations in mind, I examine the liberatory trajectories suggested by out-of-school learning environments in which minoritized people redefine learning and identity on their own terms. The research considers what punk, skateboarding, and unschooling communities offer historically minoritized members, how subcultural insiders try to cultivate a community ethos without reifying colonizing discourses, and how insights from subcultural learning enrich efforts to decolonize education in other contexts, including in schools. Over four chapters devoted to interpretive meditations on the decolonial underground pedagogies suggested in punk rock, skate boarding, and unschooling, I explore how minority-led subcultural learning environments might help strengthen learners’ links to their communities by fostering relationships founded on respect, reciprocity, and mutual accountability. These themes offer possible insights for ongoing efforts to decolonize education through informal, community-responsive, reciprocal, and healing approaches teaching and learning.