{"id":2180,"date":"2025-12-23T15:30:23","date_gmt":"2025-12-23T12:30:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jineoloji.eu\/en\/?p=2180"},"modified":"2025-12-23T15:30:23","modified_gmt":"2025-12-23T12:30:23","slug":"jineolojis-educational-methods-and-the-decolonization-of-knowledge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jineoloji.eu\/en\/2025\/12\/23\/jineolojis-educational-methods-and-the-decolonization-of-knowledge\/","title":{"rendered":"Jineoloj\u00ee’s Educational Methods and the Decolonization of Knowledge"},"content":{"rendered":"

Elif Kaya<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\n

\n

Education is foremost among humanity’s activities of socialization and finding answers to questions about who we are and where we want to go. Just as education shows us who we are, it also teaches us what we are not. Of course, what we refer to here are revolutionary educational methods that unite us with our own truth. Otherwise, we are a people who know very well how assimilation is spread through colonialist educational policies, and how society is alienated from its own truth. In other words, the methods and purpose of education also reveal its nature.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

In February of this year, TJK-E organized a comprehensive workshop that addressed educational work from a Jineoloj\u00ee perspective. In this workshop, the nearly half-century of educational experience of the Kurdistan Freedom Struggle and its outcomes were analyzed, and discussions and decisions were made about how educational work could be deepened through Jineoloj\u00ee’s methods. In this article, I will attempt to address Jineoloj\u00ee’s educational methods, which were the subject of the workshop, and their convergence with the educational work of the Kurdish Women’s Movement.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ideological<\/span> Background<\/span><\/h4>\n

Education necessarily relies on an ideological background. The method and content of education are also shaped on the basis of this ideological structure. For example, colonialism attempts to achieve results by erasing society’s memory, devaluing it, and making people problematic with their own existence. The aim of such education is the distortion of truth and the deepening of the exploitation system. Colonialists know better than anyone that they do not have the chance to sustain themselves solely through force. For this reason, every colonialist system aims to occupy mentalities before occupying territory and bodies in order to become permanent. The occupation of mentality opens the door to all occupations and constitutes the guarantee of colonialism’s continuation. Through this education, individuals are raised who submit, become alienated from themselves, lack self-confidence, view their social existence as inferior, and experience escape from their own being.<\/span><\/p>\n

Education for the Liberation of Minds<\/span><\/h4>\n

\"\"Undoubtedly, from the perspective of freedom movements, education is revolutionary work. In a sense, it is the fundamental work of purification from colonialism, enabling the decolonization of knowledge, and developing free life relationships. The liberation of minds and their purification from colonial effects can only be possible through revolutionary education. We know that the purification of mentalities from colonialism is a more difficult task than the purification of land from colonialism, and it requires a revolutionary attitude and creativity. Without overcoming the religious, nationalist, sexist, orientalist, and conservative ideas that prevent society from liberation, society’s possibility of emancipation cannot be realized. Since we cannot do this with colonialism’s methods, how can we achieve it?<\/span><\/p>\n

Educational Methods in Jineoloj\u00ee<\/span><\/h4>\n

Although Jineoloj\u00ee as a science is still a new field of study, we can state that it has a strong methodology because it is based on the experience of the Kurdistan Freedom Struggle and freedom movements. If we were to briefly express the main characteristics of this educational method: the educational method is shaped on the foundation of a paradigm. By addressing life and education holistically, it is based on a learning process that transforms every area of life into education and includes many languages such as body, art, culture, and emotion. For example, everyone shares examples from their own cuisine, their own songs, dances, and mythologies. Comparisons are made, common denominators are revealed. Narration is united with life. Collective, communal, ecological life is not merely explained; how this is possible is demonstrated through the organization of daily life. There is no ready-made curriculum in education; the same topic is not taught to every setting. The content of topics is prepared according to the needs of the educational components. A content that provides the opportunity and means to solve experienced problems and a language that ensures understanding are used. Categories such as women-men-mixed-youth-different faiths-peoples also reveal differences in the content and manner of delivery of educational topics. In other words, observing the unity of thought-practice-action in education is extremely important.<\/span><\/p>\n

Interactive Learning<\/span><\/h4>\n

In education, a style is adopted that transcends the dilemmas of giver-receiver, narrator-listener, subject-object, where interactive learning together develops. For this reason, educational environments have a character where both the knowledge within ourselves is shared and we acquire new knowledge from this environment. Rather than long presentations, after a general framework is provided for discussion, the process is deepened with analysis, interpretation, and participants’ knowledge. Absolute knowledge is avoided, and knowledge that invites reflection is presented. In order to involve participants more, not only dialogue methods but also workshops are adopted as essential to make educational discussions dynamic and ensure every participant’s active participation. Particularly for women who have difficulty speaking in large gatherings, group discussions produce more positive results for participation.<\/span><\/p>\n

A Multiplying, Communalizing Language<\/span><\/h4>\n

Educational methods also benefit from the creativity and instructiveness of art forms such as theater, music, dance, poetry, and\"\" painting. These methods demonstrate how knowledge can be vitalized in the most beautiful and aesthetic form. They produce results more powerful than words. The preparation and presentation of visual materials in educational presentations is also an important topic. With slides, videos, and visual narration, topics become more concrete. The narration of mythological stories, film and book analysis and interpretation are also methods adopted in education and applied with the aim of deepening the meaning of what we know. The language used in education is also important. It is extremely important to use an interpretive language that multiplies meanings without falling into positivism’s absolute truth, black-and-white dilemma. Eliminating the language of “impossible” from educational environments, and developing a language that will reveal the plural methods of “possible”, constitutes a measure of education’s success. Neither a propagandistic language, nor a denialist-pessimistic language that doesn’t see the developments taking place… Perhaps precisely a language like life itself, that contains possibilities, successes and failures within it, but puts forth the determination to overcome them, is attempted as the basis.<\/span><\/p>\n

The communalization of daily life and its completion through sharing is also part of education. Like gathering around a fire in the evenings, telling tales, stories, and singing songs. The sharing of the collective knowledge of the past, benefiting from its methods, and re-establishing connection is an important part of education.<\/span><\/p>\n

In conclusion, in Jineoloj\u00ee education, every lesson also functions as a sociological field research. The papers written in classes; the surveys conducted; the questions asked and the contradictions experienced; and the topics of interest, all provide data to the Jineoloj\u00ee Academy about how and in what way to access knowledge. Research conducted for educational purposes, discussions held in education and the conclusions reached transform into materials and educational topics, and the knowledge obtained is shared again with society. To put it briefly, Jineoloj\u00ee educational methods enable us to connect with our roots, to decolonize our knowledge and minds, and to reach our own knowledge. Because freedom can only find the opportunity to develop by overcoming the colonialism developed over mentality.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Elif Kaya Education is foremost among humanity’s activities of socialization and finding answers to questions about who we are and where we want to go. Just as education shows us who we are, it also teaches us what we are not. Of course, what we refer to here are revolutionary educational methods that unite us […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":2183,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[93,1,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academy-of-jineoloji","category-article","category-perwerde"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jineoloji.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jineoloji.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jineoloji.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jineoloji.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jineoloji.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2180"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/jineoloji.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2180\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2185,"href":"https:\/\/jineoloji.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2180\/revisions\/2185"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jineoloji.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jineoloji.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jineoloji.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jineoloji.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}