ABSTRACT
This chapter engages in a critical appraisal of a pedagogy that Gutiérrez, Freire, Escobar, Chambers and other critical students of society have advocated—the pedagogy of listening. Freire writes about listening as a form of tolerance, describing this as a primary duty of development practitioners. The chapter demonstrates that listening is both an act of faith and a symbolic struggle. A critical pedagogy of listening has at its centre a reconsideration and celebration of what Escobar understands as relational and indigenous ontologies. This is a pedagogy of empathy, of understanding, and one that recognizes that the east does not necessarily want to become the west. The chapter suggests that it is important to distinguish between skills and tools. Skills are those personal attributes that comprise knowledge of phenomena and the expertise required for implementing such knowledge. The chapter also presents some closing thoughts on the concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book.
