Paulo Freire's pedagogy of hope revisited in turbulent times

Abstract

This paper written by one of Freire’s collaborators focuses on the Brazilian educator and thinker’s pedagogy of hope and its importance in an age characterised by cynicism and the widespread mantra that there is no alternative to Capitalism. This paper argues for a radical and educated sense of hope which can revitalise critical human agency to operate strategically and responsibly to intervene in and contribute to collectively changing the course of history. This necessitates our understanding of the nature of different forms of oppression, not avoiding the question of class but broadening the range and facets of oppression to include race, gender, migration, and ecological insensitivity. It argues for the importance of utopia and the need to rescue it from the clutches of a reified system whose overarching narrative is dystopian. Freire provides a healthy utopian alternative to this, based on his ongoing struggles against different forms of oppression, including colonial oppression in his own country but also in the many former colonies he visited during his time in exile.