Hosted by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
In partnership with the UK Faculty of Public Health, the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine hosted a roundtable addressing the importance of the arts and humanities within public health education and training in January 2024.
Watch the full recording here.
By Euis Kurniati and Sadick Akida Mwariko
This study examines the decolonization of play through the rediscovery and revitalization of traditional play practices in the post-colonial era. Through a comprehensive literature review, the research examines the historical suppression of indigenous play forms and their contemporary resurgence. The research highlights the cultural significance of these traditional practices, emphasizing their role in identity formation and social cohesion. Findings suggest that traditional play practices are integral to cultural heritage and offer substantial benefits when integrated into modern education, particularly in early childhood education frameworks. This study advocates for a paradigm shift towards a culturally responsive pedagogy that respects and incorporates indigenous knowledge. To achieve effective decolonization, educators, policymakers, and communities must collaborate in developing educational frameworks that honor and integrate diverse cultural traditions. This approach will not only preserve cultural heritage but also enhance educational equity and inclusivity. The revitalization of traditional play practices represents a significant step towards a more culturally aware and equitable educational environment, contributing to a richer and more inclusive early childhood education experience.
Read the full article here.
By Mohammedwesam Amer
Israel’s ongoing war on Gaza has decimated its education sector, leaving not a single higher education institution standing and turning schools into shelters for the displaced. In this essay, the author, himself a professor, dean, and father of school-age children from Gaza, reflects on the physical and psychological impacts of Israel’s scholasticide in the besieged enclave. Writing from Cambridge, UK, where he fled from the genocide, the author shares his experiences teaching students in Gaza from afar, the hardships he and others experienced as educators even before October 7, and some thoughts on how Palestinians can plan for their future.
Read the essay here.
By Sarfaroz Niyozov and Stephen A. Bahry
This chapter reviews the challenges facing educational research and knowledge production, in the independent post-Soviet Central Asia through examination of the case of Tajikistan. The chapter revisits issues discussed in Niyozov and Bahry (2006) on the need for research-based approaches to with these challenges, taking up Tlostanova’s (2015) challenge to see Central Asian educational history as repeated intellectual colonization, decolonization, and recolonization leading her to question whether Central Asians can think, or must simply accept policies and practices that travel from elsewhere. The authors respond by reviewing Tajikistan as representative in many aspects, if not all particulars, of the entire region. Part one of the review describes data sources, analyses, and our positionalities. Part two reviews decolonisation in comparative, international, and development education and in post-Soviet education. Part three describes education research and knowledge production types and their key features. Thereafter, the authors discuss additional challenges facing Tajikistan’s and the region’s knowledge production and link them to the possibilities of decolonisation discourse. The authors conclude by suggesting realistic steps the country’s scholars and their comparative international education colleagues may take to move toward developing both research capacity and decolonisation of knowledge pursuits in Tajikistan and Central Asia.
Read the article here.
By Community-Based Global Learning Collaborative
Explore here the module which forms part of a toolkit, with several activities, videos, and questions.
How do we reorient ourselves away from the idea that communities that are not attached to the university don’t have cultural wealth, or knowledge to bear? How do we disrupt this notion, and participate in a practice of decolonization by recognizing the distorted relationships that exist as a result of colonization and colonialism? What does it mean to engage with decolonization in community-based inquiry and engagement? What is the significance of this engagement to how the concept of global citizenship is used and understood?
By Ailie McDowall
University disciplines are grappling with how best to incorporate Indigenous content and frameworks for practice into their teaching to better prepare graduates to work with Indigenous communities. Yet the pedagogical approaches that can best engage students in Indigenous Studies as a field of critical study are still being debated.
This article has two aims. The first is to consider how an uncomfortable reflexivity may provide an alternative theoretical and methodological approach to preparing university students for future work. The second aim is to consider Nakata’s cultural interface as a teaching tool that may open discussion around how professionals embody the disciplinary histories that govern their work.
Read more here.
By Eve Tuck & K. Wayne Yang
The easy adoption of decolonizing discourse by educational advocacy and scholarship, evidenced by the increasing number of calls to “decolonize our schools,” or use “decolonizing methods,” or, “decolonize student thinking”, turns decolonization into a metaphor.
In this article, they analyze multiple settler moves towards innocence in order to forward“an ethic of incommensurability” that recognizes what is distinct and what is sovereign for project(s) of decolonization in relation to human and civil rights based social justice projects. They also point to unsettling themes within transnational/Third World decolonizations, abolition, and critical space-place pedagogies, which challenge the coalescence of social justice endeavors, making room for more meaningful potential alliances.
Read the article here.
Young, British and Somali at Cambridge University
Decolonising Global Health Archive 