K. Wayne Yang

K. Wayne Yang is a professor and scholar of community organizing, critical pedagogy, and Indigenous and decolonizing studies. He is a professor of ethnic studies at the University of California, San Diego and Provost of John Muir College. He writes about decolonization and everyday epic organizing, often with his frequent collaborator, Eve Tuck. Currently, they are convening The Land Relationships Super Collective, editing the book series, Indigenous and Decolonizing Studies in Education, and editing the journal, Critical Ethnic Studies. He is interested in the complex role of cities in global affairs: cities as sites of settler colonialism, as stages for empire, as places of resettlement and gentrification, and as always-already on Indigenous lands.

Education and awards

Wayne Yang graduated with his M.A. in Education from University of California, Berkeley, and received his Ph.D. in Education from University of California, Berkeley. He also holds a B.A. in Physics from Harvard University.

Yang received the Academic Senate Distinguished Teaching Award in 2010.

Professional activities

Before his academic career, he was a public school teacher in Oakland, California for 15 years. During this time, he co-founded the Avenues Project, a non-profit youth development organization, as well as East Oakland Community High School, which were inspired by the Survival Programs of the Black Panther Party.

In partnership with Eve Tuck, Yang is the co-founder of the Land Relationship Super Collective. The Land Relationship Super Collective is a grassroots collective of university-based academics that aid decolonization through land reclamation.

At the University of California, San Diego, he co-founded the Indigenous Futures Institute (IFI) and Black Like Water. IFI is an Indigenous-led institute that aims to counter the legacy of unethical scientific practice and Indigenous peoples. IFI channels a community-based participatory model to create community-driven solutions to climate crisis, global pandemics, and the continued denial of Indigenous sovereignty. Black Like Water is a place-based approach to Black belonging in Matkulaxuuy, Kumeyaay territory (a.k.a La Jolla, San Diego) which identifies, amplifies, and analyzes narratives and practices that highlight the significance of honoring Black relationships to the natural world. The signature program of Black Like Water is Black Surf Week, which has taken place annually since 2019.

Books

Yang has coedited three books and written one under the avatar la paperson.

Indigenous and Decolonizing Studies in Education: Mapping the Long View

Indigenous and Decolonizing Studies in Education: Mapping the Long View, edited by Yang along with Linda Tuhiwai Smith and Eve Tuck, is a series of chapters that explore the relationship between decolonization and education. Each chapter is written by a different author, and present educational methods that are rooted in Indigenous principles.

Towards What Justice? Describing Diverse Dreams of Justice in Education

Towards What Justice? Describing Diverse Dreams of Justice in Education, which Yang coedited with Eve Tuck, features essays by various authors discussing different ideas of justice within colonialism. The book analyzes the ways in which settler colonialism and anti-Blackness permeate the educational system.

Youth Resistance Research and Theories of Change

Youth Resistance Research and Theories of Change, also coedited by Eve Tuck, explores new ways to understand and engage in youth resistance and challenges traditional conceptions of what “counts” as progress that conventional analyses of youth resistance deploy

A Third University Is Possible

A Third University Is Possible, written under the avatar la paperson, describes the university as an assemblage and posits the “scyborg” as one who, plugged into a machine such as the university, retools that machinery towards decolonizing purposes.

Selected publications

• Yang, K. Wayne. (2020) "Sustainability as Plantation Logic, Or, Who Plots an Architecture of Freedom?". www.e-flux.com.
• Yang, K. Wayne Teshome, Tezeru; (2018). "Not Child but MeagerSexualization and Negation of Black Childhood". Small Axe: A Caribbean Journal of Criticism. 22 (3 (57)): 160–170. doi:10.1215/07990537-7249292. ISSN 0799-0537.
• Yang, K. Wayne Yang (2015). Welch, Edwina; Ruanto-Ramirez, Joseph; Magpusao, Nancy (eds.). "Deep Organizing: To Build the beloved community". Nexus: Complicating community & centering the self: 9–21.
• Tuck, Eve; Yang, K. Wayne (2014). "Unbecoming Claims: Pedagogies of Refusal in Qualitative Research". Qualitative Inquiry. 20 (6): 811–818. doi:10.1177/1077800414530265. ISSN 1077-8004.
• paperson, la (2014). "A ghetto land pedagogy: an antidote for settler environmentalism". Environmental Education Research. 20 (1): 115–130. doi:10.1080/13504622.2013.865115. ISSN 1350-4622.
• Tuck, E., & Yang, K. (2013). R-words: Refusing research. In D. Paris & M. T. Winn (Eds.), Humanizing research: Decolonizing qualitative inquiry with youth and communities. SAGE Publications.
• Eve, Tuck; Yang, K. Wayne (2012). "Decolonization is not a metaphor". Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society. 1(1): 1–40.
• paperson, la (2010). “The postcolonial ghetto: Seeing her shape and his hand”. Berkeley Review of Education, 1(1).
• Yang, K. Wayne (2009). "Mathematics, critical literacy, and youth participatory action research". New Directions for Youth Development. 2009 (123): 99–118. doi:10.1002/yd.317
• Yang, K Wayne. (2009). Discipline or Punish? Some Suggestions for School Policy and Teacher Practice. Language Arts, 87(1), 49-61.
• Yang, K. Wayne (2007). "Organizing MySpace: Youth walkouts, pleasure, politics and new media". Educational Foundations. vol. 21, no. 1-2: 9–28.