Race Ethnicity and Education Vol. 11, No. 1, March 2008, 1–10 ISSN 1361-3324 print/ISSN 1470-109X online © 2008 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/13613320701845731 http://www.informaworld.com The possibilities of postcolonial praxis in education Binaya Subedi a * and Stephanie Lynn Daza b a The Ohio State University, Newark, USA; b University of Texas, Arlington, USA Taylor and Francis Ltd CREE_A_284713.sgm 10.1080/13613320701845731 Race Ethnicity and Education 1361-3324 (print)/1470-109X (online) Original Article 2008 Taylor & Francis 11 1 000000March 2008 BinayaSubedi subedi.1@osu.edu This introduction to the special issue explores the possibilities of postcolonial praxis in the field of education. The local/global focus of postcolonial perspectives invites alternative ways of theorizing question of pedagogy, curriculum and research. Postcolonial praxis similarly highlights how questions of differences and identity need to be critically reexamined and how cross racial/ethnic solidarity against dominant ways of being requires new ways of theorizing anti-oppressive struggles. By critically highlighting issues of gender, we examine three themes relevant in postcolonial praxis: (1) discrepant identities; (2) critical global perspectives; and (3) racialization and ethnic postcolonial discourse. Keywords: critical global perspectives; identities; postcolonial; racialization Introduction This special issue contributes to the field of postcolonial studies in education by interrogating the ways in which legacies of colonialism, oppression, and stratification based on race, language, gender, sexuality, and other differences have played out in various contexts of educa- tion, such as public schools, transnational research, and the personal and professional lives of transnational scholars. The field of postcolonial studies in general serves as a critique of ‘colonial domination and the legacies of colonialism’ (Loomba 1998, 12). History and the current political conditions remind us that schools, and the arena of education in general, have been critical sites of struggle for equal rights and democratic practices. Within the interstices of history and the present, postcolonial studies as a field attempts to make visible the power dynamics of these struggles, particularly in analyzing how local/global discourses overlap and are interconnected. In the spirit of postcolonial praxis, the essays included in this special issue examine topics of agency and resistance within/against dominant and alternative discourses. The essays, written by scholars who negotiate both North/South identities and who are currently situated in North American academic institutions, remind us of the need to interrogate past and present local/global conditions in order to ‘mobilize alternative tactics for a different vision of themselves and the world’ (Smith 2006, 552). A recurring topic of discussion within the field of postcolonial studies has been the term ‘post- colonial’ itself, which has generated much misunderstanding and confusion. The meaning of ‘post’ and how it is connected to ‘colonial’ have been widely debated, leading scholars to question if the term signifies the premature end of colonialism. Questions over how colonized countries can be termed postcolonial or the fact that the neo-colonial conditions are ever present makes ‘postcolonial’ a contested term (see Williams and Chrisman 1994). For this reason, scholars often have attempted to distinguish the meaning of ‘post’ in postcolonial in comparison to postmodern. Whereas the latter refers to the general collapse of modernist thinking within the * Corresponding author. Email: subedi.1@osu.edu