Engaging decolonial pedagogies as praxis: Exploring the field of decolonial pedagogical practices in the Netherlands

This explorative study is dedicated to tracing decolonial pedagogical practices around. Focusing on decolonial pedagogical practices situated in the Netherlands, this research maps what such practices are; where they respond to; what questions these practices raise and which dilemmas are brought to the fore by practitioners engaging with decolonial pedagogy. This research takes on a scavenger methodology (Halberstam, 1998), that centers around conversations with students and teachers either affiliated with the university or with art colleges, and with activist collectives. The aim is to think from and with the struggles when decolonial pedagogies are practiced and to situate them in an ‘ecology of decolonial practices’ (Stengers, 2016). This research brings forward the proposal to ‘stay with the trouble” (Haraway, 2016), as way of continuing collective practices of imagination and experimentation with decolonial pedagogy. As such, this study can be considered an empirical contribution to both decolonial proposals from theory and decolonial practices already on their way.