Chicana Feminist/Muxerista Healing Justice: Pedagogical Possibilities of Transformation in the Classroom and Beyond

Abstract

This article explores integrating a Chicana feminist/Muxerista healing justice framework into the classroom, highlighting its transformative potential for both students and educators. Grounded in the intersections of social justice, ancestral knowledge, and collective care, this pedagogical approach emphasizes students' holistic well-being, considering their bodies, minds, spirits, and multiple identities. The article demonstrates how the classroom can serve as a space for liberation, community building, and critical reflection. By engaging with topics such as resting as resistance, disability justice, pleasure activism, and community accountability, students explored the possibilities of healing justice within their own lives and communities. Through creative assignments, oral histories, and interactive practices like altar-making and ancestral reconnections, students applied theoretical knowledge to envision meaningful social change. Honoring the lineage of Chicana feminist and Muxerista activists, this framework bridges community activism with academic learning, creating a model for transformative education. The article concludes by emphasizing the necessity of courses like this in Chicanx Studies to imagine care, healing, and justice as central components of social movements, while also inspiring a legacy of empowerment, resilience, and hope.