Zine-ing Latinidad: Zinemaking, Latinidades, and the Muxerista-Jotería Pedagogical Possibilities with/ in the Graduate Classroom

Abstract

The graduate classroom is a fraught place, often instilled with the undercurrents of colonial logics and neoliberal desires. Within this understanding, how can we make the graduate classroom a space for communally situated and collaborative educational praxis? This paper brings forth the experiences of five graduate students and one professor through a plática methodology to discuss their final projects – a zine. During Spring 2025, each graduate student took a class called Critical Latinx Educational Studies, in which the focal assignment was a semester-long zine project. Guided by the theoretical frameworks of Muxerista-Joteria pedagogies and nepantla, we argue that zine-making is a site of educational liberation, and a place where individual, communal, and reflexive commitments are realized. We highlight two key findings from our plática and analysis of our critical reflection and zines, and suggest that zine-making also serves as a form of anticolonial pedagogy and a socio-material space for epistemological curiosity. Lastly, we interweave images of our zines throughout and emplace them within broader discussions of power, knowledge, and relationality.