Social transformation and liberating language education in challenging times: Southern voices and perspectives

1 Introduction

This article addresses inequality and social transformation in our unequal digital society (Mills 2016), approaching language education as liberatory praxis. I do this because I believe in the potential of a liberating philosophy of education (Freire 1974, 1976, 2014[1992], 2017[1996], 2018[1995]) to interrogate the hegemonic social order and support disruptive movements by inspiring us to reconstruct more egalitarian realities and to engage in more solidary (although always conflictive and dissentious) alliances.

In using transformative education to promote social change, it is important to understand and acknowledge our locus of speech and enunciation (Nascimento 2021); that is, our positionalities, and therefore be aware that we cannot speak to the other, in place of the other, but rather by means of an alliance with the other. As I see it, this affective bonding (Krenak 2019, 2022), which arises from a genuine interest in questioning our own truths and realities, gives us the necessary grounds and strength to fight against dominant power. For me, such a liberatory movement implies jumping into the unknown together to critically and creatively reconstruct collective existence (Mignolo 2017). It certainly takes a great deal of solidary love, humility and courage, which is urgently needed.

Sadly, Brazil – the country where I live and work – is built on profound oppressive economic, social, cultural, linguistic, gender and racial inequalities. According to Brum (2017), we are a peripheral, authoritarian and structurally racist country that has succumbed to the hegemonic forces of capital, which damage the ecosystem and violates universal human rights, disproportionately affecting socioeconomically disadvantaged populations and minoritised groups. Brazil’s extreme and persistent inequality is emblematic, caused and maintained by a colonial and neoliberal structure that perpetuates racism and wealth concentration.

Globally, we are confronted with complex and serious social issues, including the worrying effects of neoliberal capitalism (Chun 2017), the increasing dissemination of misinformation, the distressing rise in violence and attacks on human rights, and the alarming destruction of our natural reserves (Da Silva 2021). It is widely recognised that the world is experiencing a crisis in the civilisational process of modernity, including its cognitive framework and economic systems. As Kothari et al. (2019: xxi) argue, globally we are facing a “systemic, multiple, and asymmetrical” crisis that affects various domains, including environmental, economic, social, political, ethical, cultural, spiritual and embodied aspects of life.

We are therefore facing societal collapse (Holanda 2021). Social order is maintained by reproducing a contemporary colonial-capitalist regime that imposes a way of life aligned with commodification, neoliberalism and oppressive globalisation (Liberali et al. 2021; Rolnik 2018). This modern–colonial power matrix (Quijano 2007) stifles diversity, nurtures extreme individualism, silences deviant expressions relating to social class, race, sexuality, gender, as well as nonstandard ways of thinking, knowing, feeling and being in the world.

This scenario, shaped by a digital society (Mills 2016), intensifies the challenges faced by those who are committed to fighting universalism, power asymmetries and dominant narratives, while allowing other narratives to emerge. Language and power are intrinsically connected. As Makoni and Severo (2022: 82) note, language plays a crucial role in social issues related to the liberatory process of “restoring the humanity against the objectification and commodification of life, subjectivity, and languages by neoliberalism”.

In a world profoundly affected by war, hunger and social and economic inequality, as well as cultural and onto-epistemic violence and environmental devastation, I firmly believe in the transformative power of language education as a political, liberating practice (Freire 1974, 1976, 2014[1992], 2017[1996], 2018[1995]). Therefore, this article highlights the potential of language education to promote radical change. In line with Stetsenko (2019) and Tanzi-Neto et al. (2021), I regard radical as meaning the kind of change aimed at making a difference in the material world from a truly pluralist perspective.

Transformative acts presuppose affective alliances and the recognition that we are collective beings (Krenak 2019, 2022). Accordingly, we should be genuinely open to transformative connections among different narratives, worlds, cosmovisions and epistemologies. I also believe that the pursuit of more equitable and collective ways of living requires a pluriversal perspective (Escobar 2017). This approach acknowledges diversity in worldviews, belief systems and cultural practices, fostering alternative designs for living that enable multiple onto-epistemologies to interconnect dynamically. This allows diverse beings, narratives and life histories to converge.

These presuppositions give rise to an important conceptual question for our discussion: How can a critical and politically engaged perspective foster a liberating form of language education that is committed to the collective (re)creation of more socially just and potentially solidary forms of planetary, plural and affective coexistence?

To address this challenging issue, I first argue that transformative language education should be both conceptually and practically linked to a decolonial^[1] perspective (Mignolo and Walsh 2018). In addition to decolonial thinking, I believe in the potential of translanguaging (García and Li 2014) and/or translingual practice (Canagarajah 2013)^[2] to confront dominant power, especially regarding language and language education today. Translanguaging, as an epistemology, theory and pedagogical practice, is interesting because it emphasises that language should not merely be viewed as a code or resource but as an ongoing process of ideological becoming that cannot be separated from our bodies and life histories (García and Li 2014).

To develop premises and claims regarding a liberating language education in relation to decoloniality and translanguaging, in the following sections I discuss key aspects of decolonial theories and translanguaging approaches from an enactive-performative stance (Aden and Eschenauer 2020). I also link these premises to the principles of Freirean educational philosophy, as discussed by Kohan (2019). Furthermore, I present a didactic project related to deaf education to better contextualise these discussions. I believe this conceptual debate, intertwined with the educational practice described, offers an insightful framework for developing a liberatory, decolonial and translingual language education. As I will argue, this principled framework reveals that the premises of a critical and liberating language education, experienced from a decolonial and translingual perspective, can provide a basis for solidary, globally responsible and transformative praxis in our time.

2 Decolonial and enactive-performative translanguaging theories: brief intersections

Intrinsically linked to the European paradigm of modernity and rationality, coloniality can be understood as a matrix, logic or pattern of dominant power, manifesting in social, cultural, political and economic terms. This matrix has resulted from the historical process of colonisation and persists today, perpetuating onto-epistemic violence (Quijano 1992). Race, as an aspect of social classification and discrimination, is central to coloniality (Quijano 2007). As Mignolo (2011) explains, the coloniality of power is deeply intertwined with the coloniality of knowledge and being, as domination is also exerted based on gender, sexuality, subjectivity and ways of knowing. In this digital age, I resonate with the work of several scholars who have addressed what is termed the coloniality of data (Cassino et al. 2022). Such work calls our attention to the violent, racist and discriminatory ways in which technologies and data are managed and controlled today.

To dismantle the dominant logic of dehumanisation present in all social spheres, decoloniality is needed so that we can “clear the way for new intercultural communication, for an interchange of experiences and meanings, as the basis of another rationality which may legitimately pretend to some universality” (Quijano 2007: 177). Decoloniality is therefore the energy that confronts the order imposed by coloniality and challenges the rhetoric of modernity and rationality (Mignolo 2011). To disrupt the material, epistemic and symbolic effects that coloniality produces, decolonial theory encompasses critical reflection on both common-sense and scientific views of time, space, knowledge and subjectivity (Maldonado-Torres 2018). Hence, decoloniality can be understood as a set of strategically related forces, discourses and practices that confront dominant power by critically integrating and expanding global sensibilities (Mignolo 2017). It can therefore be defined “as a way, option, standpoint, analytic, project, practice, and praxis” (Walsh and Mignolo 2018: 5).

Accordingly, a translanguaging perspective (García and Li 2014) emphasises the comprehension of language not as an autonomous entity or an isolated item of behaviour, but as “an ongoing process that only exists as languaging” (Maturana and Varela 1998: 210). Hence, translanguaging aligns with the concept of enaction (Maturana and Varela 1998; Varela 1991) in the sense that our knowledge is not independent of our embodied experience and ways of perceiving the world; rather, our cognition, the environment and life activities are dynamically and profoundly entangled.

As Maturana et al. (1988: 19) argues, “[l]anguaging takes place in the praxis of living”. From this perspective, we become or happen in language, as an autopoietic unit. Cowley (2019) points out that terms like language and language use, from a reductive and static point of view, can overlook embodiment and materiality. On the other hand, from a translanguaging standpoint, the term ‘languaging’ is needed to refer to the dynamic, embodied process of becoming, as we interact, make meaning and build knowledge with others in the world (García and Li 2014).

According to Aden and Eschenauer (2020), in addition to an enactment paradigm, a translanguaging perspective should also encompass the performative nature of language. Such authors maintain that the concept of performativity cannot be considered new, as it has been widely discussed ever since it was introduced into the field of language studies and language philosophy by Austin (1962) and Searle (1969) to emphasise that words not only describe a pre-given reality but shape and change reality as well. Pennycook (2004) discusses performativity as confronting foundationalist categories in the field of linguistics and applied linguistics. He argues that the performative nature of language allows subjectivities to emerge in (linguistic) performance (such as rituals, music, plays and drama). In this way, “performativity, particularly in its relationship to notions of performance, opens up ways to understand how languages, identities and futures are refashioned” (Pennycook 2004: 1).

Building on the work of Fischer-Lichte (2004); Aden and Eschenauer (2020); Sting (2012) propose an enactive-performative approach to translanguaging in the field of education. This perspective emphasises a “three-dimensional relational epistemology (self/others/environment)”, while also situating language learning processes in “preverbal, phenomenal, experiential enactments of lived experiences” (Aden and Eschenauer 2020: 106). This holistic approach highlights the intrinsic relationship between sensory and motor elements in bodily activity. Thus, embodiment is linked to the performative nature of social actions, considering verbal and non-verbal, motion-related and cultural aspects of the knowledge-building process while also acknowledging the crucial role of languaging in our lives and learning.

In this sense, the idea of performativity is related to the notion of performance as an aesthetic activity, encompassing experience in its situated, dynamic, (inter)subjective, self-perceptive, sensory and emotional nature (Aden and Eschenauer 2020). In addition, this approach views empathy (or Freirean solidarity, which I prefer) as a driving force behind social practices and educational experiences. In the framework presented in Figure 1 (Aden and Eschenauer 2020: 105), the prefix ‘trans’ refers to the “co-creation of shared meanings across cultural differences through actions”. From this perspective, translanguaging embraces “out-of- and under-control skills, which operate back-and-forth continuously when students can combine lived emotional experience and reflective experience” (Aden and Eschenauer 2020: 105).

Figure 1:

Enactive-performative translanguaging education framework. Source: Aden and Eschenauer (2020: 109).

In line with the work of Abreu and Rocha (2024); Rocha and Maciel (2024), this enactive-performative translanguaging education proposal is significant owing to its dynamic, holistic and affect-driven nature. Based on such propositions, I believe that educational practices can be organised around a cross-curricular transversal theme, which connects educational proposals to real-life contexts. This transversality should reflect the issues that arise from situated and embodied social relationships.

By emplacing empathy, the proposal presented includes a crucial component of a translanguaging perspective. Recognising the power of affect in shaping our existence (Espinosa 2008) can foster more powerful strategies for resisting and disrupting dominant power structures and dehumanising social inequalities.

From this perspective, decolonial translanguaging praxis embraces what Fals Borda (1984, 2015) termed ‘sentipensar’. For Escobar (2016) and Walsh (2014, 2019), such a conceptualisation implies that our existence is based on our acting in and responding to the world both with our embodied minds and our hearts. This intrinsic connection between mind, body and emotions challenges Eurocentric, positivist, rationalist and distinctly individualist ways of thinking.

This sentipensante approach is deeply embedded in Southern perspectives and closely aligned with the act of corazonar, a term coined by Guerrero Arias (2010, 2011). As explained by González (2022) and Leroy (2022), corazonar emerges as a political-spiritual proposition from various communities in Abya Yala^[3] to confront the forces of coloniality. From Arias’s perspective, corazonar has the potential to disrupt reason as the dominant centre of our existence by prioritising affect and feelings as core elements of our life experience. Drawing on the work of Fals Borda (2015) and Cepeda (2017), González (2022)points out that sentipensar signifies a deep connection between the heart and the wholeness of nature, allowing us to fully understand the cosmos, including its complex meanings and nuances. Thus, I advocate for an affect-driven educational, decolonial and translingual approach to resist and re-exist in our times.

3 Decoloniality, translanguaging and social transformation: an entanglement of premises

As Menezes de Souza (2023) notes, effectively challenging colonial power (Quijano 2007) may require more than simply recognising that all kinds of knowledge are situated and contextual or being aware of our sociopolitical and historical enunciations. Coloniality functions as a hierarchical organisation of races, knowledges, cultures, languages and religions, rendering non-standard ways of being, feeling and knowing invisible (Menezes de Souza 2023). Consequently, as Walsh (2018: 17) emphasises, decoloniality “seeks to make visible, open up, and advance radically distinct perspectives and positionalities that displace Western rationality as the only framework and possibility of existence, analysis, and thought”.

These premises are interesting because they help us understand that, to interrogate colonial power and promote radical social change in our time, an expanded interconnected analytical framework is essential. Therefore, I advocate for forming alliances with what we refer to as Southern epistemologies (Makoni and Severo 2022, Makoni et al. 2024; Pennycook and Makoni 2020).

When approaching a Southern perspective, Makoni and Severo (2022) view decolonisation as a dynamic, ongoing project that continually interrogates the imposed epistemological and political boundaries that typically oppress and isolate those who deviate from the established order. In this context, Southern epistemologies, as articulated by these authors, continuously challenge hegemonic discourses and practices that inflict suffering and silencing, while also proposing possible solutions to colonial issues. Thus, Southern voices and perspectives resonate with anti-capitalist, anti-colonialist and anti-imperialist positionalities, contributing significantly to challenging and reinventing the epistemological order imposed by coloniality (Makoni and Severo 2022).

I align the term ‘Southern perspectives’ with the notion of sulear or Southing (Campos 1991, 2019). Drawing on a liberating educational philosophy, Campos (2019: 10) emphasises that this term, first proposed in 1991 and reiterated by Freire (2014[1992]), signifies a way of “counteracting the dominant Eurocentric logic that built the North as a universal reference”. From this viewpoint, Southern/Southing epistemologies can expand our understanding of how resistance is experienced locally and creatively. This is a crucial aspect, as it emphasises the power of certain groups or communities to respond radically to colonial oppression by proposing alternative solutions to the challenges they face (Makoni and Severo 2022).

To amplify its potential for confrontation and to empower us to live a full life and collectively reinvent a more harmonious existence, this resistance should include acts of resurgence and re-existence as part of decolonial praxis (Mignolo 2017). Thus, decoloniality involves transformative practice that requires the courage to engage in collective and creative spaces of unknowing, allowing us to critically and radically re-emerge together (Mignolo 2017). Such premises can be aligned to the notion of translanguaging spaces (García and Li 2014; Li 2011) regarding their transformative nature and their potential to allow new identities, values, knowledges and practices to emerge, while also confronting monolithic and monolingual ideologies, since they are constitutive elements of the coloniality of language (García and Alvis 2019).

Far from being fixed, stable entities typically viewed as an abstract system of norms, a translanguaging view acknowledges language as everyday practice and action performed by people in reflexive, relational, dialogical and embodied ways (García and Li 2014; Mazzaferro 2018). From this standpoint, as Blackledge and Creese (2014) argue, translanguaging embraces the dialogic and heteroglossic nature of language (Bakhtin 1981, 1975).

In this sense, language practice is constituted by a different and divergent range of languages, language varieties and voices, all of which are ideologically embedded and in constant tension. Centrifugal and centripetal ideological forces compete, so that language practices enable social transformation amid the ongoing processes of unification and decentralisation. As I see it, heteroglossia is an important element to consider when discussing decolonial and translanguaging approaches because it emphasises the idea that, as subjects and living beings, our languaging – our very existence in the world – happens in contact zones (Bakhtin 1981, 1975; Pratt 1991). Within all their constitutive tension, borders should not be seen as fixed, pre-existing boundaries but as fluid, dynamic elements open to new beginnings. By embracing heteroglossia, translanguaging spaces activate the potential for the dynamic orchestration of languages, language varieties, voices and other semiotic, multimodal, cognitive and sensory resources (García and Li 2014; Mazzaferro 2018). This nurtures pluralistic and more affective possibilities for the rise of new collective linguistic realities.

These premises are important because they emphasise the urgent need to reconnect with nature so that we can find more potent ways to engage in transformative translanguaging spaces, as well as to build affective alliances (Krenak 2019, 2022) to promote social change. I believe that such ideas have a lot to do with building pathways to fully live plurality and commonality (Arendt 1968). From this perspective, I resonate with Makoni and Severo (2022), understanding that translanguaging and Southern epistemologies play a crucial role today in the construction of transformative, plural, communal spaces.

As far as social transformation is concerned, the thoughts of Stetsenko (2019) are particularly interesting. The author defends the concept of radical-transformative agency, aiming to challenge universalism, solipsism, dualistic thinking and the passive acceptance of a supposedly pre-existing social order. This kind of agency is crucial today because it fosters our potential to (re)imagine new social realities nurtured by plurality and commonality. From this perspective, promoting radical social change necessitates enabling the common to rise up as a latent expression of our life impulse, provoking unprecedented social transformation (Liberali et al. 2021; Rolnik 2018).

Accordingly, radical social transformation presupposes a collaborative and dynamic process of both changing oneself and changing the world. As Liberali et al. (2021) explain, radical agency, as proposed by Stetsenko (2017), involves people coming to know their world through the experience of getting to know themselves within a collaborative social, cultural and ideological process of becoming. Simultaneously, this collaborative experience happens because of a process of collaboration, infused with plurality and mediated by language, thought and emotion (Liberali et al. 2021). In this sense, radical transformation is both an external and internal sentipensante process.

To summarise my key points regarding the disruption of colonial thinking, I reiterate my firm belief in an expanded, decolonial and radically transformative (language) education, which would address several significant issues in contemporary society.

1. Resisting the colonial matrix of power and neoliberal forces to promote pluriversity and alternative cosmologies.

2. Challenging monolithic and monolingual ideologies to allow for the emergence of Southern perspectives, as well as transcultural and translingual spaces.

3. Critiquing modern rationality and oppressive individualism in favour of a pluralistic, communal and feel-think-know-act approach.

Based on such premises, other questions can be raised, for instance: How can we engender other possible worlds and linguistic realities from such a perspective? How can we promote radical social change by means of language education?

From a liberating philosophical and educational stance, one possible response to this challenge is to resonate with Kohan’s comments on Freire’s work. I reiterate that now, more than ever, we need Paulo Freire to confront colonial power, racism, and cultural and linguistic discrimination, as well as other forms of subordination present today (Kohan 2019). Despite criticisms regarding the Eurocentric basis of Freire’s emancipatory philosophy (Walsh 2013, 2019), I believe that, when approached critically, his views offer valuable analytical resources to promote expanded and radically transformative (language) education practices, ultimately helping us to challenge sociopolitical asymmetries and dominant discourses.

4 An open conceptual framework: bridging freirean educational philosophy and translanguaging practice

When considering a kind of language education that is deeply engaged in social transformation, its political nature takes on a broader meaning concerning not only our actions within the logic of the representative democratic system. Instead, enacting a political, liberating form of educational praxis involves the way we exercise power in our relationships in and with the world. More specifically, it has to do with how power is wielded in our lives on this planet and when we teach and learn. Likewise, it involves our ability to collectively promote transformative movements and experiences that foster the rise of both resistance and expansion (Liberali et al. 2021).

The political and philosophical dimensions of Freire’s work are important because they connect the idea of human education/(trans)formation to an ethical and aesthetical endeavour. His approach to life and education exemplifies “a way of bringing together theory and practice, abstraction and concreteness, reflection and action, thought and life”, that is, praxis. This praxis allows us to experience the tensions, complexities and contradictions through a critical, creative, solidary and radically transformative lens (Kohan 2019: 65). It is important to point out here that Freire rejected any form of dogmatism regarding our existence in and with the world. He would not want us to follow his ideas blindly or to parrot his proposals (Freire and Faundez 2017[1985]: 60).

Freire’s legacy and decolonial force lie in the humble rejection of false notions of ownership, certainty and superiority, while courageously embracing criticism and reinvention. Beyond his words, it is Freire’s liberating energy that inspires me most. I also find interesting the way Freire’s life and work intersect, and how we can apply his principles to organise our transformative praxis as ordinary people and as professionals. In this sense, I argue that we can interconnect Freirean basic premises with other related concepts, allowing us to expand his ideas and fully engage with Freirean philosophy in a unique way.

From this standpoint, I find Kohan’s perspective particularly useful, as he approaches Freire’s life and work as a cohesive unit. To explain the basic ideas of Freirean philosophy, Kohan (2019) offers five principles (or possible beginnings, as he prefers) that illustrate how Freire’s biography intersects with his liberating philosophy. These principles – life, equality, love, wandering and childhood – are powerful analytical resources that can help (language) educators to critically promote radical change. According to Kohan (2019), these principles should not be seen as a linear given path to follow, but rather as constant encouragement for self-questioning and forging new beginnings. I believe this approach to understanding Freire’s philosophy is effective for enacting radical social transformation and confronting dominant power.

Given this, I now briefly present these principles, as I believe they intersect deeply with the premises of a decolonial and translingual perspective. In doing so, I connect them to the ideas I have discussed thus far, in an attempt to create entangled paths for the critical and creative development of a liberating, translingual and decolonial educational praxis.

5 Freirean theory and decolonial translanguaging practice: a possible educational example as a closing observation

Liberali et al. (2021) argue that a radically transformative approach to (language) education should be based on a cyclical set of proposals that are deeply connected to social life. This perspective should be closely aligned to Freirean critical thinking, enabling those involved in the proposed pedagogical practices to overcome speculative reasoning and act with greater consciousness, thereby enacting social transformation from a decolonial standpoint. Educational projects, viewed as revolutionary acts, “seek to articulate characteristics of the real world with pedagogical actions in order to create spaces and conditions for subjects to engage in activities aimed at solving real problems in schools, communities and consequently, society in general” (Liberali et al. 2021: 86).

Aligned with the previously discussed Freirean principles, such premises encourage us to understand educational experiences as translanguaging enactive-performative practices (Aden and Eschenauer 2020), where decoloniality and solidarity are central. These practices are rich in existential content and nurture the intrinsic connection between embodied knowledge, languages, cultures and life histories. Thus, education projects can insurge as radical transformative actions, dissolving the rigid boundaries surrounding language, culture, knowledge and the like, allowing non-hierarchical relationships between participants to emerge (Liberali et al. 2021). In addition, resonating with the constitutive aspects of a decolonial, enactive-performative translanguaging educational approach, liberating educational praxis embraces artistic expression as a form of social activism, collectively confronting the various forms of violence imposed by coloniality.

Numerous educational projects worldwide operate from this perspective. To situate the conceptual framework outlined, I briefly present a didactic proposal I developed in collaboration with a group of scholars and students at my university.

In 2022, I taught an undergraduate course for pre-service teachers of Portuguese as a second/foreign language, with significant contributions from Dr Jéssica Vasconcelos Dorta and Dr Ivani Silva, who work in the field of Deaf Education. The proposal for this course involved the discussion of theoretical foundations to guide the production of didactic resources (printed and digital) for language teaching and learning for deaf people. This endeavour was supported by a series of remote and face-to-face lectures featuring experienced guest speakers, allowing students to reflect on the constraints imposed on deaf people by monolingual discourses and to create materials aligned with a decolonial translanguaging perspective.

In alignment with the Freirean life principle, we planned to implement the didactic material developed with deaf students learning Portuguese at CEPRE (Centro de Estudos e Pesquisas em Reabilitação/Center of Studies and Research in Rehabilitation) at the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP) in Brazil. To select a transversal theme that resonated with the premises of decolonial, enactive-performative translingual education, our group chose to develop material based on Body Slams.

Slams Battles (or Batalhas de Slams, as they are known in Brazil) exemplify dynamic and socially transformative literacy and literary practices (Neves 2017, 2021). These poetry competitions allow participants to perform written poems that express resistance and promote social transformation. Body Slams bring together deaf people and other performers in artistic battles. Due to their embodied, multisensory, plurilingual and multicultural nature, we view such practices as potent, liberating and translingual learning experiences. They enable different languages, voices and positionalities to emerge, challenging dominant power and resonating with the Freirean principle of equality.

Thanks to Dr Jéssica Vasconcelos Dorta’s invaluable contribution, the entire group of pre-service teachers actively participated in constructing this didactic proposal, culminating in the production of a slam by the deaf students for whom the material was intended. This challenging yet rewarding experience, narrated in more detail in Dorta (2024), embraced the emergence of the deaf students’ life histories and their affective resistance narratives. Based on the Freirean childhood principle, the project also involved profound reflection on what sentipensante resistance meant to everyone involved and how we could collectively create opportunities for confronting hegemonic power through art and affective decolonial translanguaging praxis, resonating with the Freirean love principle.

As a group, while developing and experiencing the material with students, we created a sense of communal bonding, nurturing the act of corazonar – placing love and solidarity at the heart of a liberatory educational practice. Aligned with the act of wandering as transformative praxis, I believe this project also resonates with a decolonial attitude, requiring courage and humility to start from a place of unknowing to collaboratively create a critical and creative learning space to promote radical change.

Ultimately, a genuine sense of hope and joy was present in the entire process, reminding us that the spirit of childhood can foster the belief that change can happen and that we can collectively build better unheard-of realities. May we always feel inspired by the power of life, engage in affective and solidary bonding, and remain strong in our commitment to teaching and learning as a collective thinking-knowing-feeling experience and as an opportunity for resistance and re-existence.