ABSTRACT
The special issue of Diaspora, Indigenous, and Minority Education journal was published in September 2021 (https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/hdim20/current" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/hdim20/current) and this book supplements the themes in the special issue, which is the first of its kind! We begin this chapter by discussing how the idea for this book further developed based on formal and informal conversations around willing to be uncomfortable by opening up about our vulnerabilities, including past and present experiences of pain, suffering, and trauma. Next, our positionalities as co-editors are outlined in terms of our identities and lived and professional experiences. As part of creating a brave space with the readers, we also share personal things that you may not know about us. We encourage you to reflect on your own life and experiences to begin constructively engaging with your own pain, suffering, and trauma. Building on this, the chapter then situates the collective work in this book by providing an overview of the three themes serving as book parts – telling and reliving trauma as pedagogy, pedagogies of overcoming silence, and forgetting pedagogy – which demonstrate pedagogies of pain and suffering in various contexts and their impact as therapeutic and transformative. We make the argument that the language of pain and suffering is universal, hence its potential as critical pedagogy for transformative teaching and learning.
