Towards a decolonial pedagogy: Building trust and daring to be vulnerable

Abstract

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, the literature and research methods, we respond reflectively to our research questions. For this we first reflect on how we established a relationship of trust between us; second, we describe the effects of power sharing by handing over formal teaching to students and third, we report on the extent to which we managed to build relations of recognition, vulnerability and trust between ourselves and students. In conclusion, we reflect on what we have learnt from this experiment in building a collaborative, trustworthy and vulnerable pedagogy.