Characteristics and Outcomes
of Liberatory Spaces
Written by Meaghan Davis (2022)
Liberatory spaces have unique and specific characteristics. Below is a list of ten characteristics that contribute to the development and fostering of liberatory spaces. For this study, one or more of the contributing factors listed below must be present for a space to be considered liberatory. Based on the synthesis of current literature, this list was created by the researcher for this study.
Characteristics of Liberatory Spaces
Liberatory spaces embody either one or more of the following;
The recognition of trauma and engagement in healing practice (Menakem, 2017 and hooks, 1994). Participants need to be able to be and to be recognized as their whole self, which includes wellness (hooks, 1994). Bell hooks (1994) says that there is always pain involved in the process of unlearning and learning. She also asserts that pain and painful situations do not necessarily equate to harm and that pain is part of liberation (hooks, 1994).
The development and fostering of relationships lead to participants feeling that they matter and that they belong (Love, 2019). All participants must be known. There must be interest in each of the participants of the space (hooks, 1994). Liberatory spaces are ones in which everyone is heard, recognized, and valued (hooks,1994). Relationships built and fostered through love and the expression of emotion are often seen as suspect in the academy but are critical components of liberatory space (hooks, 2019).
The mutual engagement of all participants is critical. This includes both ongoing action and reflection, which requires vulnerability, presence, and listening. Collective participation is indispensable as dialogue makes participants more acutely aware of one another (hooks, 1994).
The presence of excitement, celebration, and all emotions are inescapable in a liberatory space (hooks, 1994). To outsiders looking in, the presence of joy or laughter or fun can make people believe that there is nothing serious happening in that learning community, but joy can coexist with hard work (hooks, 1994).
The co-creation of brave space and community among participants is imperative (Arao and Clemmens, 2013). All participants must struggle together and support one another (Arao and Clemmens, 2013). When the space is not serving all participants, it must be named and a cumulative effort must be made by all to change the situation (hooks, 1994 & Arao and Clemmens, 2013). Naming struggle, difficulty, and adversity is also important when it comes to the rejection of racism, sexism, queerphobia, colonialism, and all forms of oppression in a liberatory space (Patel, 2021). The creation of the space cannot just be the sole responsibility of the facilitator to monitor the presence or absence of oppression (Patel, 2021).
Liberatory space must allow participants to challenge dominant power, including the ways it shows up in institutions, cultures, and in ourselves as well as one another (hooks, 1994). Liberatory space allows for engagement in the practice of critical thought, critical consciousness, and informed decision-making (hooks, 1994). This can be unsettling to many participants since it is far outside of what they might be used to (hooks, 1994). Liberatory spaces challenge participants to open up to ways of thinking outside of convention or habit, and to engage in their discomfort, even if only briefly (hooks, 1994).
The active discovery of and sharing of one’s voice is another critical component of liberatory spaces (hooks, 1994). Hooks (1994) calls this, coming to voice. There must be a value placed on the knowledge anchored in lived experiences, knowledge from which people feel empowered (hooks, 1994; Ahmed, 2018). This leads to people sharing more of their voice and discovering the power of their voice and their story (hooks, 1994). It is not always about equality of time speaking in the space, but knowing all participants can speak because they will be recognized and valued when they do (hooks, 1994). This is specifically important for Black, Indigenous, and people of color who have ways of knowing and lived experiences that are historically discredited and silenced (Patel, 2021).
Liberatory spaces honor a commitment to learning about one’s individual and collective history, context, and perspective. Bell hooks (1994) suggests that learning at its most powerful can be liberatory. Patel (2021) agrees and asserts that unearthing the truth is transformative and allows participants to begin to decolonize their minds. Patel asserts that education is so important to emancipation and involves the process of releasing what one already knows to learn something new (Patel, 2021). This release of what one already knows can be about what one knows about oneself or the world. Hooks (1994) suggests that liberatory spaces can be a place to reinvent ourselves independent from dominant power.
The development and implementation of individual and collective goals must be a consistent practice in liberatory space. Goals allow learners to grow, to reimagine, and co-create something new, which bell hooks (1994) believes is a healing practice. Patel (2021) agrees that this practice can aid in decolonization that will allow participants to change how they (re)imagine justice and liberation.
Liberatory spaces engage in the iterative practice of reflection and feedback, which is demanding and beneficial (hooks, 1994). In addition, reflection and feedback must be a creative and consistent practice (hooks, 1994). It is important to engage in reflection and feedback throughout the lifetime of a liberatory space, not just at the end (hooks, 1994). In traditional academic spaces, end-of-semester evaluations and grades are customary, but those practices are most often ineffective in sparking change in the space while it is shared (hooks, 1994).
Outcomes of liberatory spaces
Liberatory spaces have powerful outcomes (hooks, 1994). Below is a list of four outcomes that result from the development and fostering of liberatory spaces. Based on current literature, this list was created by the researcher for this study. The outcomes of liberatory spaces happen in unfolding steps, where each one builds upon the one before it in a cumulative process.
Participants’ self-awareness, self-actualization, self-determination, and confidence are the first step in the outcomes of liberatory space (hooks, 1994; Love, 2019). Participants experience transformation in understanding themselves in relation to the world (Patel, 2021).
Participants develop personal empowerment, agency, and self-efficacy (hooks, 1994). Participants begin to see and feel their power, many for perhaps the first time (hooks, 1994). Their experiences support the development of recognition of authority that is empowering (hooks, 1994). Participants are no longer consumed with a fear of power and now acknowledge and understand how to use and reproduce power for the liberation of themselves and others (hooks, 1994). Participants come to recognize and employ their power through choices (hooks, 1994).
Participants develop critical consciousness as a location, a skillset, and a process (Ahmed, 2018). The goal is reached where participants will always be thinking about and considering their liberation and the liberation of others in their day-to-day life (Ahmed, 2018). Participants will be on a never-ending journey of unlearning and relearning how to learn (Ahmed, 2018). Participants develop a new perspective on thinking, living, and working (Ahmed, 2018).
Participants move beyond themselves and co-create a community, providing, gaining, and seeking solidarity as well as social capital (hooks 1994; Love, 2019). In this phase, participants can also experience integration, healing, and wholeness (hooks, 1994). Beyond community and integration, participants can also continue forward to develop as teachers and leaders of liberatory spaces themselves (Love, 2019). As Bettina Love (2019) shared, the civil rights activist Ella Baker was committed to the development of young activists for Black liberation. This is an astute example of leadership for burgeoning leaders of liberation, or leadership for reproducing liberation.
For this study, there will be a focus on the second outcome of liberatory spaces outlined above. This outcome’s focal point is personal empowerment.
References
Ahmed, S. (2012). On being included. Duke University Press.
Arao, B., & Clemens, K. (2013). From safe spaces to brave spaces: A new way to frame dialogue around diversity and social justice. In L. Landreman (Ed.), The art of effective facilitation: Reflections from social justice educators (1st ed., pp. 135–150). Stylus Publishing.
hooks, b. (1994). Teaching to transgress: Education as the practice of freedom. Routledge.
Love, B. (2019). We want to do more than survive: Abolitionist teaching and the pursuit of educational freedom. Beacon Press.
My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies by Resmaa Menakem, LMSW, LICSW, SEP
Patel, L. (2021). No study without struggle. Beacon Press.