Learning From Indigenous Pedagogy: Movement as Anti-colonial Practice
Introduction: movement, dance, and play as Indigenous pedagogy
Indigenous cultures have long used movement, dance, and play as central components of their educational systems. These activities were not mere physical exercises but embodied practices that conveyed cultural values, social norms, and survival skills. In these communities, dance was a form of storytelling, connecting individuals to their ancestors, the land, and each other. Play and sports were methods of teaching essential life skills, such as hunting, community cooperation, and environmental awareness. In concert with LMA's core principle that "how you do one thing is how you do all things," the universal yet distinct conditions for survival gave rise to universal yet distinct patterns in Indigenous practices.
Colonizers, however, dismissed these practices as unsophisticated or irrelevant to the modern world. They imposed a Western educational model that prioritized cognitive learning, direct verbal and written instruction by a white authority or proxy, lectures, passive order-taking, robotic (slavish and lifeless) repetition, standardization, and strict memorization. This model emphasized speech and quiet obedience, devaluing self-learning and the body's role in knowledge acquisition. In the Western-defined concept of "freedom," speech, law, and order-taking remain paramount. Coloniality disrupted Indigenous pedagogies, attempting to replace them with rigid structures that alienated people from their cultural roots and bodies.
By design, the Western model eliminates autonomy and tells you it's freedom. There are no decisions to make, thoughts to form, or movements to discover—it was already decided for you. Your role is merely to memorize and repeat. If the goal is enslavement or cheap labor, a necessary first step is to disconnect people from their bodies and dehumanize embodied practices and leisure. Through Western hegemony, we are all conditioned to value ourselves, each other, and the natural world from the perspective of productive capital, property, and white supremacy.
Historical context: the erasure and resistance of Indigenous movement practices
The history of colonialism is marked by the suppression of Indigenous knowledge systems, including movement practices. Colonizers sought to erase these traditions by banning dances, games, and rituals deemed "pagan" or "uncivilized." Play and games were viewed as "lazy" and ran counter to the colonizer's goal of enslavement. This suppression was part of a broader strategy to impose control over Indigenous peoples, not just physically but psychologically and culturally.