can the center speak for the subaltern? moving across the borders to decolonize philosophy for children (p4c)

Abstract

This article offers a postcolonial critique of Philosophy for Children (P4C), arguing that despite its democratic aspirations, the program risks reproducing epistemic violence and colonial hierarchies in racial, colonial, and Indigenous contexts. Drawing on Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s “Can the subaltern speak?”, it examines how P4C’s universalist and Eurocentric foundations structurally silence subaltern voices by privileging the norms of Anglo-American analytic philosophy and marginalizing alternative epistemologies. Spivak’s concept of “epistemic violence” shows that even well-intentioned attempts at inclusion can reinforce subaltern invisibility when their speech remains unintelligible within dominant knowledge systems. In response to the impossibility that Spivak identifies, which closes off the possibility of authentic subaltern speech, I engage with Henry Giroux’s concept of “border pedagogy” to explore ways of decolonizing P4C. Giroux reimagines educational spaces as sites of critical negotiation where dominant and subaltern knowledge systems meet, encouraging border crossing practices that question claims to epistemic neutrality. Border pedagogy supports contextualized and pluralistic inquiry that values oral, narrative, and affective modes of reasoning alongside canonical traditions. The article proposes considerations and strategies for implementing a decolonial P4C praxis, including the use of ethnographic listening, the integration (and interrogation) of popular culture and Indigenous knowledge systems. By synthesizing Spivak’s diagnostic critique with Giroux’s practical considerations, this article’s effort is to reposition P4C as a potential site for epistemic justice, pluralistic dialogue, and transformative education accountable to history, difference, and power.