COVID 19 and the Pedagogy of Culture-centered Community Radical Democracy: A Response from Aotearoa New Zealand

Abstract

In this essay, drawing on our ethnographic work at the “margins of the margins” in Aotearoa New Zealand, we depict the role of communicative pedagogy for radical democracy in sustaining spaces for community participation in pandemic response. Based on accounts offered by community advisory group members and observations of emergent community spaces of co-operation amidst the pandemic, we suggest that the ongoing work of building co-creative pedagogy for “habits of democracy” is vital to community response. The work of learning to learn together the habits of radical democracy in communities is permanent work that prepares communities for crises, simultaneously building anchors for imagining radically transformative futures. Drawing on the key tenets of culture-centered pedagogies in communities at the global margins in co-creating voice infrastructures for health and well-being, we suggest that community spaces are key sites of mutual aid in responding to health crises such as Coronavirus disease (COVID-19). The pedagogy of the culture-centered approach (CCA) in communities at the global margins co-constructs “habits of democracy” (Spivak, 2012) as the basis for identifying challenges to health and well-being and organizing around community-led solutions (Dutta, 2008; 2011; 2015; 2016). Culture-centered interventions co-create communication infrastructures for voice, anchored in a culturally rooted pedagogy of community organizing, advocacy, and activism (Dutta et al., 2019). Our team of academics, activists, advocates, and community researchers begin with seeking to understand the meanings of the concepts of dialogue, empathy, listening, imagination, voice, engagement, and research within the INVITED FORUM