Decolonizing Healing Praxis: Testimonios of Hope & Transformation among Community Educators and Practitioners and Young People of Color

It is well documented how the cumulative social toxins of systemic oppression and racism have detrimental consequences on the health and wellbeing of low-income Young People of Color (YPOC). There is a growing recognition among community educators and activists that healing constitutes a critical intervention to fostering Young People’s individual and collective capacity to hope and believe that their living conditions can be transformed (Ginwright, 2015). Healing is understood as a process that is inclusive of mind, body, culture, and spirit and aims to restore and renew the emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual wellbeing of Young People, educators, and the broader community. However, not much research has examined how community educators, practitioners and Young People are making meaning and building innovative practices inclusive of healing to facilitate a sense of positive identity and wellbeing among Young People of Color. By centering the testimonios of community educators, practitioners and YPOC, this dissertation examines how healing is a fundamental praxis to harnessing the power of critical consciousness, culture, and hope among Young People. Healing offers alternative models and strategies to building healthy and resilient communities in response to the ongoing physical, mental, and spiritual violence of systems of oppression. Based on the testimonios of community educators and practitioners, Young People of Color, and participant observation in community spaces that center healing and social justice, this work explores the emergence of a decolonizing healing praxis that centers healing as a critical process by which to facilitate individual and collective agency with Young People of Color. As a methodological tool, testimonios provide great insights into the life experiences and reflexivity of participants in this project. For this work, healing is understood as a process inclusive of mind, body, culture, and spirit and aims to restore and renew the emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual wellbeing of Young People, educators, and the broader community. Testimonios serve as a healing tool that aims to heal the fragmentation inflicted by historical and ongoing trauma while aiming to strengthen the desire to create community and movement. Participants' understanding and embodiment of healing is transformative. It seeks to address root causes of oppression and decolonizing in that it works to create a third space that goes beyond trauma informed and fosters the intrinsic value of going within to facilitate collective healing with YPOC in the larger project of decolonization. I argue that what I am calling a decolonizing healing praxis facilitates healing spaces that provide a context for young people to reconceptualize individual challenges as a politicized collective struggle, and through this process, create a platform for both Young People and educators of color to collectively engage in healing and transformative relations. I elaborate a robust analytic of healing to emphasize a focus on educators and YPOC’s mind, body, and spirit as key to understanding the role healing practices play in supporting transformative and holistic modes of teaching and learning. The findings from these testimonios uplift the cultural healing wealth fostered in community spaces, which center healing practices that are culturally relevant and draw from a diverse range of healing modalities. Moreover, it highlights how a decolonizing healing praxis can support Young People in their individual and collective healing processes to nurture their resilience, hope, and capacity to see themselves as agents of change.

Advisor: Baquedano-Lopez, Patricia
de los Rios, Cati V.