Storytelling as resistance: A podcast-style epistemology for decolonising education in Japan
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1285/i24212113v12n2/1p267-284Keywords:
Social Justice Education, Decolonising Education, Podcast-style EpistemologyAbstract
This paper explores storytelling as resistance through a podcast-style epistemology for decolonising education in Japan. Framed as the pilot episode of an imagined podcast, Decolonise This!, the article draws on action research and community psychology to challenge Western colonial legacies in Japanese higher education. At its core is a dialogic process between two educators, trained in Indigenous focus community psychology in Aotearoa New Zealand and now teaching in Japan. The authors engage in recorded conversations about decolonial teaching practices. These unscripted, heart-to-heart exchanges became a platform for reclaiming oral storytelling and co-constructing a Decolonisation Toolbox grounded in empathy, critical reflection, and student-led inquiry. By employing Social and Emotional Learning, multilevel analysis, and self-reflection, this pedagogical approach fosters what the authors call Edu-Power: a renewable, student-centred energy for social change. The podcast format challenges conventional academic norms by reclaiming reciprocal spaces, cultural nuances, and communal benefits over rigid rules. Ultimately, this article offers educators a creative and relational model for transforming classrooms into spaces that foster the ripple effects of social change. It affirms that decolonisation is not merely a content shift, but a methodological and epistemological reappropriation, one that must begin with listening, storytelling, and the courage to do things differently. In summary, this paper shows how podcast-style storytelling can serve as a decolonising pedagogy that transforms classrooms through empathy, dialogue, and shared power.
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