Longing for Possibilities: A Learning and Literacy of Love

What possibilities exist when we engage and evoke decolonial love at the site of learning and literacy? This question is one that I attempt to answer, and, for me, it begins with a personal narrative that demonstrates a mattering of love. From there, I set out on a journey to situate the meaning of decolonial love, which I situate in relation to the classroom context. I insist that critical discourse and language disruption are necessary and significant to a rupturing of decolonial love, especially in terms of self-love. In the former, I consider how discourses of resistance encourage my students and I to confront colourism in the classroom, and to emrbace a love for one’s body and identity. In the latter, I speak to the hatred that my students and I develop for the [m]other(ed) tongue, shedding light on the importance of reclaiming dialects and languages that have been forced into exile and pushed to the margins. But, most of all, what I profess is the profoundness that exists in the following words: I love you. This tenet, more than anything, is a provocation that to speak about love is perhaps the most important thing one can do to practice the act of decolonial love.