This presentation will explore the role of engaged learning as a decolonizing practice that allows students to critically reflect on the relationship between self and other, identity and power, tradition and reimagining, while actively contributing to the transformation of their communities. Drawing from critical pedagogies and decolonial frameworks (bell hooks, Walter Mignolo, Paulo Friere, and Parker Palmer), this paper will interrogate Western-centric epistemologies to understand the ways in which experiential and embodied pedagogies engage more holistic, interconnected ways of being and knowing.
Specifically, this presentation will examine the ways in which the engaged learning practices in the course "Sikhism: Sage Warrior," including seva (selfless service), simran (meditative reflection and contemplation), sakhi (storytelling), shabd (song/word) and sangat (community engagement) disrupt and deconstruct colonial, supremacist, and exclusivist ideologies. These pedagogical tools give students the opportunity to slow down, reflect upon and reimagine relationships between self-other-community-enivronment through Sikh and indigenous frameworks of relationality, reciprocity, and care.
Through student testimonials we will see how their engagement with Sikh concepts, practices, and the Revolutionary Love Tour, an initiative led by Sikh activist Valarie Kaur, offered an embodied experience of ancestral wisdom and tools for resilience in the face of historical and current precarity, harm, and trauma. Through engagement with the tour and an "Act of Love" storytelling archive, students were able to experience the Sikh spirit of “chardi kala,” ever-rising spirits, even in darkness, to understand possibilities beyond despair and cynicism, how to ignite courage and imagination, and the unique role, responsibility, and power of each individual to create positive change for shared sovereignty and mutual liberation.
This presentation explores how engaged learning and experiential pedagogies of seva (selfless service), simran (meditative reflection and contemplation), sakhi (storytelling), shabd (song/word) and sangat (community engagement) can function as decolonial practices to transform the self in relation to community, past, present, and future. Through student engagement in the course Sikhism: Sage Warrior and collaborations with grassroots initiatives led by activists, artists, and musicians, I will examine the ways in which the afore mentioned pedagogical approaches can provide a transformative framework for student learning and collective well-being.