Experiencing Positionalities, Privilege, and Powers

Ways of Activating Embodied Learning and Awareness in the Classroom

Abstract

This workshop will engage participants in experiential and embodied activities to facilitate learning and reflection on positionality, privilege, and power and the ways in which these shape our everyday interactions and broader societal contexts. The conceptual framing, exercises, and reflection processes will support participants in better understanding their own positionality. We will explore how our intersectional identities shape our worldviews and, consequently, our learning and teaching. We intend to model and facilitate discussion around bringing anti-racist and anti-oppressive perspectives into our classrooms and other educational settings in practical and effective ways through experiential learning, play, and embodiment. In our experience, such holistic practices make room for more grounded engagement with and discussion of critical concepts in ways that bridge theory and practice. We are holding questions of what methodologies and practices can support us in slowing down and exploring our inner worlds, recognizing that these are intimately entangled with our external social and ecological landscapes and systems and essential to transformative change.