A Conversation with Heidi Majano and Juli Hazlewood about Decolonizing Higher Education
“In our way of seeing life everything is living– not only alive, as in the ‘natural world’, but as in all beings have spirits and are equal to us.”
Juli Hazlewood, Co-founder & Executive Director of Roots & Routes IC
Helena Gualinga in action as a spokesperson for environmental and Indigenous rights. Image source: CNN.
Decolonizing…That’s a word we use a lot at Roots & Routes IC. We learned it thanks to the historical and ongoing struggles of the Black Liberation and American and Canadian Brotherhood Indian Movements in the 1960s. Through action and reflection about how to create social change, Black activists like Franz Fanon in the 1950s, followed by Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, and Indigenous leaders in the 1960s have been discussing this concept for a long time. Just now the decolonizing concept has become a bigger part of popular culture, and sadly, is largely misunderstood and consequently, criminalized. So, what does decolonizing mean, especially in diverse contexts, and in this case, “decolonizing education”? How can decolonized education lead to more hope, to a better world? And, how can we create more educational spaces where those who are Indigenous, Black, and other descendants of these great civil rights movements are speaking for themselves and within intercultural collaborative conversations about decolonizing?
This is the subject matter of this third part of a four-part series, in which Roots & Routes IC and the Peaceful World Foundation have partnered to share their knowledge with the YVC and the rest of the world. Heidi Majano, Executive Director of the Peaceful World Foundation, and Juli Hazlewood, Co-founder and Executive Director of Roots & Routes IC, came together again as teachers and mentors to share their lived experiences of aiming to re-story what learning can be like.
Both Heidi and Juli share a background of living and working with forest communities—Heidi in Papua New Guinea, and Juli in Ecuador. On July 24th, 2022, they visited the Youth Visionary Collective (YVC) interns at Roots and Routes IC in our virtual space to discuss, why they went to graduate school, in what ways they found that graduate school shaped their minds and lives in both positive and negative ‘colonizing’ ways, and how applying what they learned by living with forest communities helped them to separate the chaff from the seed, or what they wanted to carry on and disguard–that is what decolonizing means. Heidi & Juli shared why decolonizing their educations was important to, creating pathways to more holistically pursue your dreams.
An issue many of us at the YVC have begun to notice is the lack of diverse representation in our education systems. Part of our conversation focused on why decolonizing our education systems is important. First, decolonizing can be understood as confronting and changing systems and processes that have been influenced by treating some classes, races, ethnicities, genders, and abilities of people as superior to others. These understandings that hold up some and marginalize others have rooted themselves in human history and are passed down as “natural”; they determine how and what we learn in our educational systems. Decolonizing education involves unpacking these imperialistic practices of knowledge-making; simultaneously, we try to establish more diversity, equity, and inclusion as we redefine what is valid and what is not and who decides.
Although continued learning through universities and schools can help with critical thinking and expanding perspectives, what is taught in schools is most often from the perspective of western and eurocentric ideals, reproducing colonial systems. We youth come to join the Youth Visionary Collective because we are unsatisfied with what and how we are learning in our high schools and colleges. As a way of activism, we want to re-envision what higher education can be.
We learn from people like Heidi and Juli, and the circle of Roots & Routes’ circle of mentors about how to tease out what colonial ways of knowing and what alternatives there are. We learn we can empower ourselves to become decision-makers in our education. We can take back our learning-teaching processes. With prior experiences of diverse learning, notably their lived experiences of learning from Indigenous forest communities and then continuing to graduate school, Heidi and Juli have seen the differences in non-western and western ways of learning, in how supposedly official versions of history are told by those who have had access to and held power.
In Western education systems, holistic approaches to life, based on Indigenous and peoples of color ethnicities, are compartmentalized. It is presumed that a universal hierarchical dualism, founded on exploiting and controlling nature and non-western peoples, is the superior and “the most rational” way forward. Although it seems people are beginning to awaken to how slavery of Black and Indigenous peoples are at the very foundations of most nations, how their ways of knowing, doing, and being in the world were stigmatized and silenced may be harder to detect within our everyday teachings within academia.
What topics, subjects, and approaches get labeled as more important than others become ingrained in “the basics” of what is learned. Anthropology or Geography, for example, emphasizes the teachings of previous white European men as the basic and only lenses through which to understand what is learned “in the field” (often non-western communal settings). Greater inclusivity and relearning can help decolonize the who’s, why’s, how’s, and what’s, that matter in higher education.
When youth interns interviewed Heidi and Juli and asked them about what led to their decision to go to graduate school after such profound experiences living with Indigenous communities, Heidi Majano pointed to her daily life in Papua New Guinea. Her work in rural communities centered on local history and traditions within peace and conflict resolution. She wanted to make a positive difference and saw educating herself more as a path to do it. Using education as activism helps create awareness, which is the first step to creating meaningful change. Watch the video below to hear more about Heidi’s decision to pursue higher education:
Juli explained that her reason was based on noticing the lack of diversity in her undergrad environmental studies classes. Juli expressed that she was motivated to go to graduate school by wanting to set up an organization to create experiential educational programs where Indigenous peoples in other communities, who steward the land they live on, would be teachers. The idea was that these community members would teach people from the North and earn money that way. With the proceeds, more experiences could be created for Indigenous and other land-based peoples to learn from one another. This is what Roots & Routes is in the process of setting up!
Juli told us about when she first went to meet with a Geography professor at the University of Texas to share her idea and talk about studying with him, he said the idea was not realistic. When the meeting was over, he said, “Have a good life.” This story she shared with us is evidence to us that the education and value system we have set up now in most of the western world, lacks the hope and possibilities many younger generations are looking for in their academic lives. Thankfully, Juli was not discouraged by the words of her professor and went on to make her dream a reality by creating Roots & Routes!
Many people ask themselves if graduate school is the right next step for them. Heidi and Juli shared how their passions and trust in what they were doing were real drivers for the value they place in higher education. Graduate school can be a route for many that are able to see, learn, and discuss the bigger operations behind particular injustices. One of the bigger advantages, they explained, is learning more about how academia and western knowledge systems are set up as well as expanding social circles! This niche space of higher education allows extended conversations to take place to prevent the continued status quo and offer real hope in action.
With this in mind, it is important to note the privilege of accessing education—from who does or doesn’t get scholarships to reproducing inequity in personal learning abilities depending on the color of one’s skin or class. Juli Hazlewood mentioned that it is also important to stress that this is not necessarily as true in countries in Europe where education is free and that the debt-peonage system in the U.S. is especially problematic: “I personally think that in the United States that there is an exploitation of the youth through having us pay for education and then come out of our education in debt.”
The cost of higher education is a debated topic in the U.S., but even with the cost attached to it, Heidi acknowledges that it may still be worth it to be able to pursue your passions, network with people, and gain experience along the way. For those who see graduate school as the right path for them, Juli recommends seeking scholarships to help fund their path to higher education. For those in other parts of the world, the higher education system may work differently, it is all about learning how to navigate the application process and making choices that align with your interests.
The YVC Social Media team made this Instagram post to capture a message that Heidi Majano gave to us during the meeting. She also reminded us that the experience we gain and the people we meet from the journey are what matter the most.
So, how should one figure out what they love and narrow in on what to learn? Heidi left the YVC with an important message about this, explaining, “I had to search elsewhere… going to live events with guest speakers… that is the place where you learn, let me tell you. Go to these places because you have conversations, and you can meet different people from different backgrounds.”
Heidi and Juli’s talk with us can be summed up by highlighting the importance of praxis (theory + practice). Combining individual on-the-ground experiences with the stories and teaching of others in our readings and talks that we attend can help one narrow down their interests and figure out passion-filled pathways forward for one’s career. The image below quotes Heidi when she shared with the YVC about getting out into the world and having on-the-ground experiences to figure out what makes your blood boil, what you love, and what makes you jump for joy.
Check out Roots and Route's Instagram to see highlights from our guest speakers, and to learn more information about the work we do!
Discovering what you like and dislike lays out stepping stones for your personal journey. It is helpful to think beyond your individual experience and begin to imagine yourself as becoming part of a larger community of people and nature. It is great to feel like you’re part of something bigger, especially when you are interested in social change. We can’t change the world alone. Today, there is a great call to start bringing diverse people of different classes, races, ethnicities, genders, and (dis)abilities, (what is called intersectionality) to all fields of work. Opening doors that allow for more equity and inclusion in education actualizes hope for positive change where we live and across the world.
A special thank you from our Youth Visionary Collective to Heidi Majano, Executive Director of Peaceful World Foundation, and Juli Hazlewood, E.D. of Roots & Routes, for taking the time to share their perspectives on higher education. It is always great to hear and learn from the rich life experiences of others. Remember to stay tuned for the last blog in this wonderful Roots & Routes and Peaceful World Foundation four-part series. In the meantime, we will leave you with some questions to ponder: What are your views on higher education? What steps would you take to decolonize education?