Creating space amidst violence

Abstract

We live in times of compounding crises and ongoing violences. While perhaps not the most violent of times, depending on one’s positionality, context, and circumstances, the impact of the CoVid-19 pandemic along with the dramatic ecological and environmental changes occurring across the globe have in many ways compounded ongoing racial, economic, gender, and colonial violence. in their recently published exchange of letters, Black Canadian author and scholar robyn Maynard and Nishnaabeg cultural worker and scholar leanne Betasamosake Simpson (2022) invite each other— and us as readers—to contemplate what it means to build relationships across differences amidst such violence. in Maynard’s words, “as we are confronted with the crisis of the earth’s viability, then, amidst so many crises, i am writing you so we can think together about what it means for us to build livable lives together in the wreckage” (Maynard & Simpson, 2022, p. 28). the letters between these two influential thinkers inspire us to imagine what it might mean to encounter each other, even if momentarily, to create spaces for joy, generosity, and mutual recognition and uplift which might serve not just as a respite, but as a countermovement against ongoing violence. the kind of exchange that Maynard and Simpson (2022) exemplify as necessary for constituting a liveable present and imagining a future is antithetical to the hierarchical structuring of educational institutions like schools. Maynard and Simpson encounter each other as equals, not in the sense that they are the same or share the same experiences, but rather that they stand on equal footing across differences. this encounter acknowledges these differences and recognizes them as a source of strength that animates the possibilities for a future. in stark contrast, educational processes across colonial and racist institutions like schools are organized by a specific hierarchization of social and cultural differences that produces violence. and yet, as the authors in this issue of Curriculum Inquiry illustrate, these hierarchies and violences are not overdetermined. instead, as educators, we can seek to create liminal moments when schooling structures can be momentarily suspended and opportunities for encounters amongst equals, through which we recognize each other across and within differences, are possible. the ways authors in this issue approach curriculum and pedagogy offer opportunities to wrestle with the contradictions we live within by opening ourselves up to the liminal spaces of our present situation. as James