Making Race: Examining the Power of Local Place in Teacher Discourse in Mauritius

Abstract

Teaching to students’ local experiences is a tenet of good teaching in many contexts. This study explores the ways eight educators use local meanings in discourse. Through ethnographic work in an elementary school in the township of Roche-Bois, Mauritius, I examine teachers’ words about students’ localities. Articulating critical discourse analysis with theories of space, I evaluate whether teachers’ place-based meanings perpetuate or transform long-standing historical patterns of racialization associated with the town. The analysis identifies how processes of racialization take shape through place-based discourse. I draw implications for a critical pedagogy of the local to support decolonizing teacher knowledge.