Anti-colonial epistemic disobedience in the education system: Michoacán and Oaxaca as experiences of post-colonial educational construction in Mexico

Abstract

This paper aims to analyse the educational policies, practices and pedagogies which, based on anti-colonial epistemic disobedience, are helping to advance in the present and in the future towards more equitable, just and sustainable relations in the construction of an "other society" in Mexico. Two (trans)local experiences from the State of Michoacán and the State of Oaxaca have been chosen because of their relevance in the Mexican educational system, because of their lack of knowledge at the international level, as there are hardly any studies on the subject, and because of their long history of anti-colonial educational practice by the educational communities of both states, which is significantly extended and affects the educational policies being developed in Mexico. The research methodology used was Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) of the working documents of significant (trans)local educational experiences in the states of Michoacán and Oaxaca and in-depth interviews with those responsible for these experiences. The findings reflect that (trans)local participatory and engaged action-research experiences and practices have been generated and maintained in these states which, in some cases more globally and in other cases more locally, have promoted forms of epistemic disobedience against the educational and social colonialism that is advancing in Ibero-America. In the discussion it is argued that the results reflect that not all educational communities have the same level and involvement in anti-colonial resistance and that not all strategies for promoting a decolonial pedagogy that is unsubmissive to neoliberalism and capitalism are always shared within them.