ABSTRACT
What does it mean to take our responsibilities seriously? How do we ground ourselves in the kinds of issues I have raised in my introductory chapter? How do we learn from each other about varied economic, political, and cultural struggles that are crucial for social transformation—and about viewing the world in which we live and the place of educational movements in it differently? What perspectives do we need to do this and to whom should we turn to get and build these resources? These questions are intimately related to the issue of the politics of knowledge and the politics of who can legitimately count as knowers. Let me begin this chapter by placing the politics of knowledge and knowers, and our growing appreciation of the importance of postcolonial, global, and critical pedagogical approaches to these politics, at the center. To bring these points home, I shall focus on one of the most important figures in the history of critical education, Paulo Freire. I will then employ his example to do two things: connect his work to the emerging literature on postcolonialism, globalization, and critical pedagogy that provides answers to these questions; and suggest a number of crucial tasks in which critical educators need to engage.
