March 13, 2014

Post-Colonialisms and Global Citizenship

Maria Paula Meneses e Marta Araújo

This study analyzes how the administration of difference (race/ethnicity), (non-)citizenship and education is central to colonial projects. The concept of "post- colonial learning" explores education and research based on epistemological diversity as spaces to reclaim selves and communities against homogenizing modern/colonial national projects and monocultures of knowledge. The contours of "post-colonial learning" were shaped by hip-hop to envision a space of inter-knowledge or epistemological diversity. Hip-hop is a cultural movement traditionally composed of DJ music, graffiti, break dancing, and rap music (its most prevalent element). Hip-hop emerged from enduring experiences of exclusion, racism and the political resistance of African Americans in the US and has since spread worldwide. Beyond an American cultural import, hip-hop becomes powerful cultural force of its own socio-historical and socio- political creation. The objective was to use these qualities of hip-hop to create a dialogue with people who have experienced racism, colonialism, and displacement/diaspora and to explore how it informed their struggles for education by creating a media-savvy battleground for inclusion, community sustenance and demand for different accounts of knowledge.The study is based on extensive interviews, the analytical use of lyrics and first- hand observation of hip-hop concerts, educational workshops, and related community events. Hip-hop was first used to create dialogue among members of communities of African origin in post-colonial Portugal and urban and rural Native American communities in the U.S. and Canada. The study then explored how elements of hip- hop were appropriated and use for alternative education, including a multimedia project co-founded by a Native American hip-hop artist in the San-Francisco/Oakland Bay area and state-funded programs for social inclusion in the greater Lisbon Metropolitan Area. Hip-hop was found to be a tool used by members of Native American and African-originary communities to deconstruct colonial knowledge and colonial discourses. Their work also emphasized the roles youth play in this process due to their efforts to access knowledge omitted from 'official' accounts, e.g. school curriculum or academic knowledge. The study recognizes members of these communities as social analysts, educators and producers of knowledge.