systemic and embodied injustice
UNLEARNING
Workshops, Webinars, Consultancies & Retreats
Flexible and personalized, we create a program to meet your educational needs.
Let's UNLEARN together!
JOIN US IN OUR 2025 UNLEARNING RETREAT!
Explore, study, and practice Unlearning with our community partners in the Highlands and Amazon of Ecuador.
Unlearning refers to engaging in the critical and creative process of identifying and transforming the systemic and embodied injustices that we have normalized in our ways of knowing and being.
We all want big changes, but for any change to be sustainable we must first unlearn.
In these workshops and consultancies, we focus on unlearning within our institutions, pedagogy, stories, and bodies.
Thematic areas
How does the world around you impact your identity, and vice versa?
How can stories change the world?
Who decides what is valid "knowledge" and who is a "knower"?
How does it work
Available online and in-person, our Unlearning workshops are applicable to diverse learning communities (mostly at colleges and universities). Usually contracted by faculty or staff for professional development and community building, they are also excellent ways to complement an existing class or as an event for an academic department, a study center, and student groups.
​
In the last years, we have worked with faculty and staff in academic departments (from Spanish to Arts Administration), with study centers such as Latin American Studies, and with campus offices such as Global/International Programs or International Student Services. We have also developed extensive Unlearning interventions for classes in varied academic disciplines such as Education, Theatre, Native American & Indigenous Studies, Media Arts, Communication, History, and more. Additionally, we have guided non-profit organizations and grassroots collectives in their unlearning processes.
​
We tailor our workshops to the needs of each group, but all of them focus on unlearning the normalization of systemic and embodied injustice in our lives. Usually they are designed around three overarching thematic areas-- Identity and Pacha; Epistemic Justice; and Storytelling for Social Change-- all of which can be shared as dynamic webinars (or presentation, if in-person) for larger groups or as interactive workshops for smaller groups. For partners that would like an extended intervention, we offer an Unlearning Series (usually 3 to 8 workshops), which we custom design with the partner organization.
​
Our Unlearning practice employs interactive techniques that encourage participants to apply what they learn into their daily practices. Teachers develop pedagogical tools, staff members develop new perspectives and language for improved communication, students develop new ways to dialogue about social justice. All offerings have been co-created with community educators/knowledge holders from Ecuador and proceeds support local projects in their communities. Workshops are available in English or Spanish.
​
More than anything, our workshops help participants explore and process the complicated times we are living in, while incentivizing us to heal wounds and dream towards a better future.
Please contact us for more information.
IDENTITY AND PACHA
.jpg)
Unlearning identities of separation. It has never been more important to seek interconnection and balance. Climate change, the global public health crisis and global sectarian conflicts have revealed just how interdependent we are on the environment and each other. This workshop/webinar links the traditions, practices, and oral memory of Andean and Amazon peoples to our current lived realities, and puts theory to practice by offering tools that help us engage the natural world and our communities with new perspectives. We explore what it means to live in a llakta (territory), be part of an ayllu (community), and envision how we relate to pacha (the cosmos), as well as how to develop a greater understanding of our roles as runas (human beings).
STORYTELLING FOR SOCIAL CHANGE
.png)
Unlearning the dominant stories of oppression, colonialism and modernity. If we want to change the world, we must first change our stories. Stories are how we make sense of who we are and who we want to become, and, in times of injustice, they are used for both manipulation and liberation. This workshop/webinar explores how stories have shaped our world, as well as how we can use them to identify and transform conflicts. It helps us to see the power of stories in our day-to-day lives, as well as the dominant narratives and myths that define our societies. Our goal is to imagine new narratives that take us towards re-storying our world: the narrative act of collective healing and liberation. We offer a numer of unique narrative practices, which can be selected by the partner organization, including body-mapping, sound/rhythm/music, puppetry, mask-making, spoken word, theatre and more.
EPISTEMIC JUSTICE
.png)
Unlearning preconceived notions of knowledge and what it means to know. We are taught not to condone violence, yet we do it every day, because how we see the world has been shaped by the colonial legacy of how, what, and where we learn about the world. This workshop/webinar questions what we understand as knowledge and who we consider to be "knowers" by engaging with epistemological pluralism. We explore the colonial narrative of knowledge, identifying our dominant epistemologies as well as non-Western ways of thinking and being that have been excluded and devalued. We then use creative radical exercises (radical listening, radical imagining, radical empathy/vulnerability) to collectively imagine what epistemological pluralism would look like in our lived realities.
TESTIMONIALS
"Pachaysana cares for me as a student and as a whole human being. They have helped me to realize a more holistic and community-based model ofeducation that will inform my future work and goals. I will carry their influence with me throughout my life, both in traditional academic and more informal educational spaces."Anna Marti - Student, Wesleyan University
"Pachaysana’s online programming was perfect for my graduate seminar, engaging students in a variety of participatory activities... hands on
activities connected to student interests in culture, environment, and sustainable development in Latin America. Most highly recommended!"
Gregory Knapp - Associate Professor of Geography and Director of Sustainability Studies, University of Texas at Austin
"Pachaysana’s workshops have invigorated our classroommethodologies in immediate and powerful ways, exposed faculty and students to alternative pedagogies, and provoked meaningful reflections and dialogue that engage with broader issues of racial injustice, diversity and inclusion. Particularly meaningful was Pachaysana’s embodied approach to the acknowledgment of Indigenous lands and histories. It has forever changed the way we go about our commitment to honor the LandAcknowledgment with proper depth and humility.”
Michelle Wibbelsman - Associate Professor, Department of Spanish and Portuguese, The Ohio State University
"The scaffolded exercises invited students to explore their whole selves in a community-oriented, immersive context that centered on the artful creation and universal impulse of human storytelling. It was a powerful experience to witness students trusting the power of embodied knowledge and the intuitive creativity that followed."
Sara D'Angelo - Assistant Professor, of Theatre and Performance Studies, Brown University
"Even though I'm 'alone' in my dorm, I feel joyful and connected. Identity and
Pacha proves that classroom material can cause real embodied shifts.
It's amazing that even over Zoom, I can feel such community, care, and love
from my classmates. I can't fully express how grateful I am for this course"
Angie Fike - Student,
Wesleyan University
UNLEARNING/DECOLONIZING STUDY ABROAD
How can study abroad play a role in decolonizing the academy?
This workshop (which can also be converted into an extensive consultancy) comes from our 10 years of experience in fair-trade and decolonial study abroad. Over the last years, we have engaged in an extensive dialogue with our partner universities in the States, our partner communities in Ecuador and the students who have participated in our programs to develop a workshop (or webinar) on Unlearning Study Abroad.
​
In line with scholarly work in decolonizing study abroad and critical internationalization, this offering invites offices of international education to enter into a deeper questioning of our field and imagine a new path forward. We begin by recognizing the relationship between study abroad and colonialism/coloniality. We then learn what it means to unlearn, with a focus on recognizing the colonial legacies present in our work and identities. Finally, we identify areas in which we hope to advance our offices and our field.
​
For those who are experiencing greater calls to "decolonize the campus/university," we recommend International Education offices consider an Unlearning/Decolonzing Study Abroad consultancy (see below) where we conduct a series of workshops and interviews in order to identify the overarching conflicts and opportunities for transformation.
CONSULTANCIES
How to bring the workshops into practice?
Webinars and workshops are great opportunities for learning new information, questioning our beliefs and beginning to practice the changes we hope to implement in our classes, curricula, policies and relationships. They open the door to greater insight; however, sustainable change requires a more extensive dialogue. For our partners who are interested in developing that insight and converting it into new ways of creating and interrelating (policy changes, new methods/pedagogy, curricular transformation, etc.), ask us about our extended consultancy programs.
​
Unlearning REtreats
Come unlearn with our community partners in Ecuador!
Based on numerous requests from faculty and staff at many of our partner schools, as well as fellow activists and organizers at non-profit organizations, we will offer "unlearning retreats" to Ecuador starting Summer 2025. These retreats will bring together a dyanmic cohort of individuals to explore, study, and practice Unlearning with our community partners in the Highlands and Amazon of Ecuador.
​​
Unlearning retreats are designed in partnership with local Indigenous communities and with the intent of creating spaces where we all unlearn and grow together. We will develop knowledge and skills that help us transform our work as educators, activists and community-builders.
Our work doesn't stop with unlearning dominant narratives. We will also be tasked with reimagining new stories, focusing on how we can integrate diverse ways of knowing and being into our work and personal growth.
Our daily practices will be focused on radical listening, radical empathy and radical imagination. By the end, each participant will leave inspired and ready to apply their experiences to transforming our institutions, redesigning our teaching and re-purposing our activism.
​​
Highlights:
​​
-
Live and learn with the Indigenous communities of Mushullakta in the Amazon and Pintag in the Andes.
-
Workshops with community educators, ancestral knowledge-holders, and Pachaysana faculty.
-
Visits to tropical rainforests, Andean volcanoes, Indigenous craft markets and the Toxic Tour (a guided visit to sites contaminated by oil and mining extraction).
-
Optional extended stay to volunteer and/or research with our many partner communities.
​​
We will share more information in July 2024. Until then, we encourage you to begin looking for grants or professional development funds to finance your retreat to Ecuador.