Fanon, Education and the Fact of Coloniality

Chapter
First Online:
Part of the Education Policy & Social Inequality book series (EPSI, volume 1)

Abstract

In race theories of education, there has been a resurgent interest in the works of W.E.B. Du Bois, as they apply to the racial politics of schooling. This makes sense within a US context because of Du Bois’ public status as an intellectual. By comparison, there has been less attention paid to Frantz Fanon, whose work on decolonization was formative in the 1960s and 1970s. This chapter introduces the opening that Fanon provided for intellectuals in critically understanding the colonial interaction as part of the broader architecture of race relations. Although colonial administration has changed and adapted over time, the fact of coloniality continues, tucked away effectively within the discourse of neoliberalism. Focusing mainly on Black Skin White Masks and The Wretched of the Earth, we introduce critical Fanonian concepts, like the mask, anti-blackness and violence as a way to explain contemporary US race relations and education. By doing so, the chapter assesses the continuing relevance of Fanon’s lifework against colonialism even after the official fall of colonialism, survived by a new condition of coloniality that is necessary to take into account if Fanon is to remain useful for education scholars.

Keywords

Critical Race Theory Gift Exchange Black Skin Educative Function White Mask 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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Copyright information

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2017

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.University of CaliforniaBerkeleyUSA

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