Abstract

LUCKETT, Kathy  and  HLENGWA, Amanda. Towards a decolonial pedagogy: Building trust and daring to be vulnerable. Journal of Education [online]. 2025, n.101, pp.111-132. ISSN 2520-9868.  https://doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i101a06.

In this article we reflect on the significance of building trust and being vulnerable as we engaged in teaching decolonial material. Using a collaborative autoethnographic methodology complemented with a thematic qualitative analysis of course data and student interviews, we report on the process of co-teaching a theory course that introduced decolonial perspectives to doctoral students. After discussing our positionality and how we established a relationship of trust between us, we set out the literature and research methods we employed, and we respond reflectively to our research questions. For this we first describe the effects of power sharing by handing over formal teaching to students and, second, we report on the extent to which we managed to build relations of trust, recognition, care, and vulnerability between ourselves and students. In conclusion, we reflect on what we have learnt from this experiment in teaching decolonial material and what significance a focus on pedagogic relations might hold for decolonial pedagogy more widely.

Keywords : doctoral education; decolonial pedagogy; collaborative pedagogy; affect; trust and vulnerability.

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