Boaventura and Education

This book examines the work of the leading critical and decolonial intellectual Boaventura de Sousa Santos and its impact on education in general, and curriculum in particular. The volume brings to the table crucial itinerant theoretical rivers of thought in order to examine and understand the crises of modernity and their consequences. The author insightfully articulates Sousa Santos’ major arguments – ‘prudent knowledge’, ‘decent life’, ‘sociology of absences’, and ‘epistemicide’, among others – to unpack some of the major issues facing the contemporary critical terrain. In so doing, she examines how Sousa Santos retools the critical ‘emancipatory educational project’ towards a more just and participatory democratic society. “Boaventura de Sousa Santos’ groundbreaking theories on epistemology, politics, and society are weaved into brilliant focus against the backdrop of educational practice. What emerges is a powerful exposé of political tensions, contestations, and ruptures, inherent to the struggle against the persistent colonizing forces in the lives of oppressed populations. Central to this decolonizing treatise are the paradigmatic transformations essential to an education truly in the service of democratic life.” – Antonia Darder, Leavey Endowed Chair of Ethics & Moral Leadership, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, Distinguished Visiting Professor of Education, University of Johannesburg, South Africa “A must read for educators and for students. Boaventura and Education allows one to understand the importance of the work of Boaventura de Sousa Santos that is essential for those who struggle for another world; that is more just, democratic, and united.” – Jurjo Torres Santomé, Professor, Universidade de A Coruña, Spain “In her work of art, precision, and clarity on the work of Boaventura, Inês Barbosa de Oliveira offers us a new framework with which to analyze and critically understand education. …Oliveira’s Boaventura and Education is a fundamental tool for thinking critically for all those who oppose the mental paralysis that harasses us.” – José Félix Angulo Rasco, Professor of Education, University of Cadiz, Spain, Professor of Education, Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, Chile