**9. Summary of my Learnings**

Although my journey in understanding CaC as an anti-racist pedagogy has just begun, what I have learned, so far, is that CaC can be understood as anti-racist in its facilitation of the empowerment of Campesinos/as to work toward their own version of sustainability. To be anti-racist, education, including education for sustainability, must value diverse cultural knowledge and be culturally rooted to be relevant for learners [10]. By centering Campesinos/as as protagonists, CaC values diverse cultural knowledge and ways of teaching and learning that originate in each context where it is practiced. By working through peer relationships CaC sets up fundamentally different ways of teaching and learning from that of traditional agricultural extension. Although there may always be a power imbalance between those who have the knowledge and those who want to learn, the balance of power between those who consider each other to be peers is importantly different. Peers assume competence in each other; thus, the relations of power are more balanced. Each has something to learn from the other. CaC operates in ways that assume and build the power of those who have been marginalized by dominant systems.

CaC makes empowerment real, not by giving or lending power, but by assuming it is already there. This power is predicated on a fundamental belief by the facilitating organization in the capacity of Campesinos/as as holders of knowledge that will lead them toward self-sufficiency. This knowledge is not based on an abstract concept of 'development' created far away, but on knowledge and experience of the local context that is needed for building sustainable livelihoods in this context. This valuing of Campesino/a knowledge and expertise is unique in a society that continues to treat Campesinos/as as "less than". To move toward anti-racist approaches to education for sustainability we must interrogate the history of 'development' and how it affects our conceptions of who has the expertise to decide what sustainable development looks like. By teaching agroecology, CaC contributes to the revitalization and learning of traditional Indigenous agricultural practices and knowledge that may have been erased through colonial processes.

This paper illuminates researcher reflexivity as crucial in the process of decolonizing research and transitioning to anti-racist approaches to education and sustainable development. I shared the story of my learning journey to demonstrate how my white privilege and unexamined biases limited my understanding and representation of CaC and the perspectives of my research participants. My experiences unsettled the hegemony of 'Western' knowledge in my own thinking and led to moments of epistemic friction that gave me pause. In these pauses, I opened my mind to new ways of understanding CaC pedagogy. This matters because I am now able to recognize and interrogate systems that continue to marginalize Campesinos/as and can work to bring their knowledge and perspectives to discussions of education for sustainable development where 'Western' discourses are still accepted as the norm.

Through reflecting on my research journey, I have learned several ways that researchers can unsettle the hegemony of 'Western' knowledge and revalue marginalized ways of knowing and being. First, learn about the colonial history and social relations of power (race, class, gender), that affect each context. My learning journey reinforced that racism operates differently in each political, cultural and historical context and is greatly influenced by colonial histories. Learning this critical context is especially important in cross-cultural situations to understanding the perspectives of participants and communicating their interests and aims. CEE as a methodology was helpful in guiding me toward understanding the critical context including how racialization, gender, class, Indigenous identity, and narratives of 'underdevelopment' influence the daily lives of Campesinos/as. These understandings can be used to transform public perception about Campesinos/as and "interrupt and reframe the victim-blaming mantras" [47] (p. 169).

Second, consider the history of research itself and how it may perpetuate colonial relations of power. Learning about and reckoning with the histories of anthropology, forced me to consider every step and decision in my research process in a new way. To decolonize our research methodologies, we must interrogate the history and purposes of research and find ways to involve subjects of research in all stages of design and elaboration of study so our research can be in a reciprocal relationship with participants. Part of this learning involves navigating the privilege of doing research and offering our labor as researchers in reciprocity for the efforts of our participants. Changing the research relationship to one of collaboration revalues the knowledge and expertise of participants and moves research away from its extractive history.

Thirdly, expand and shift the scholars we consider in our analysis. Engaging with scholarly work that originates outside dominant 'Western' ways of knowing is necessary to understanding diverse manifestations of sustainability and education for sustainability. The exercise of trying to make CaC fit into 'Western' theories of teaching and learning was useful in the sense that it allowed me to see where CaC was different. Encountering decolonization theory forced me to consider that my attempt to explain CaC through 'Western' social learning theories was perpetuating the imperialism of Western/Euro-American knowledge. I had fallen into the unconscious pattern of assuming that 'Western' knowledge is universal, and in doing so neglected to consider ways of teaching and learning as they are understood in other cultures.

As I shared at the beginning, this is only a part of my story, and my learning journey continues. As a white settler scholar, I have much to learn and reckon with, but through the sharing of my reflections, mistakes, and limitations, I invite others to also engage in reflexive practice. As Fortier writes, "the responsibility of non-Indigenous peoples to engage in self-reflexive and critical actions and research around their own relationships to colonialism

and the process of decolonization is important in the development of self-determining relationships of solidarity" [19] (p. 22).

**Funding:** This research was supported by the Ontario Graduate Scholarship Program, and Queen's University.

**Institutional Review Board Statement:** The doctoral study, which this paper is based upon was conducted in accordance with the Ethics Review Board of Queen's University.

**Informed Consent Statement:** Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study.

**Acknowledgments:** I acknowledge that this research would not have been possible without the staff of Fondo para la Paz and the Campesinas and Campesinos of Calakmul who welcomed me and shared their perspectives. I am grateful for the careful attention and thoughtful suggestions of my dissertation committee and the three peer reviewers of this article. I also thank Charles Levkoe, and Ranjan Datta for their support in developing this article.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.
