Campus in Camps. Decolonizing Knowledge and the Question of Un-learning

This paper addresses the topic of decolonial pedagogies in the Global South, analyzing Campus in Camps, an educational program founded in 2012 by Alessandro Petti and Sandi Hilal to activate critical communal learning in the Dheisheh refugee camp in Bethlehem, Palestine. The program reflects on refugee camps undergoing a process of social and spatial transformation. The paper raises two main questions: how does the Campus in Camps program decolonize knowledge construction methodologies in relation to camp life? How does it activate processes of embodied pedagogy in which knowledge is grounded in action and emerges as a group effort accommodating subjects born from interaction between participants, tutors and the broader social context? This article will first focus on the issue of conceiving the camp as a site of history and knowledge. Secondly, it will enquire into the pedagogical strategies, research methodologies and participatory design methods implemented in order to “decolonize knowledge” through collective un-learning practices.