Putting ourselves into practice: Popular education at/and universities

This is the journal website. There is not much information on the index. http://joe.ukzn.ac.za/Homepage.aspxThis paper looks at different ways in which popular education has been played out in South African university adult education (UAE) since the 1980s. It traces the changing relationships between UAE and sections of civil society, notably social movements, within the context of shifting socio-political dynamics. It suggests that today, there is a tension: UAE is asked to pay allegiance to vocationalism, market values and individualism. Adopting the old struggle language of ‘empowerment’, ‘participation’, and ‘people-centred education’ seems to signal that the old freedoms adult education as non-formal education utilised, are still alive. However, popular education is in danger of becoming a technology, divorced from the purpose and alliances that gave it meaning in the past. The paper asks what role does popular education have to play, today? It outlines some ways in which UAE can still make itself accountable and useful to struggles for social justice. These are proposed as a model of good practice – encapsulated by Collins’ (1991) suggestion that rather than putting theory into practice, we should put ourselves into practice.Department of HE and Training approved lis

Reigniting the popular education tradition in South Africa : research and launch of a website (www.populareducation.co.za)

Popular Education initiatives in working class communities have been an integral part of people’s efforts to respond to the lack of education and cultural facilities under apartheid. In South Africa, in the eighties, ‘People’s Education’ was one response to deep economic, political and social crises reflected in and impacting on the education crisis. People’s Education was both an educational and a political programme. Remarkably, a wide range of concerned parties from within civil society, the private sector, academia, and trade unions got together and debated vigorously about both how to address the crisis, and how to imagine and forge an alternative education, for the future, together.peer-reviewe

Community education in times of Covid-19

There is an African proverb that says ‘a smooth sea doesn’t make a skilled sailor’. We are currently on a very rough sea and it feels like we are in a rubber dinghy that bobs up and down – not unlike those small blow-up boats that refugees use, sustained by a hope for survival and arriving in a better world. The pandemic of Covid-19 has rocked the world – and while we created the conditions for its thriving, we were blind to the way we ravaged the earth paving the way for environmental, economic and human emergencies and a climate crisis from which we may not recover. There were many warning signs which we ignored, and as Mike Davis says, ‘the long-anticipated monster is finally at the door’, and global capitalism totally impotent in the face of this biological crisis

Taking risks. Exploring ecofeminist, climate-just popular education

The climate catastrophe is a clarion call to humanity to change how we live. How do radical popular educators respond to this call? We ‘join the dots’ using climate justice, ecofeminism and our own insights from our engaged activist scholarship as theoretical positions to explore this question.  Dominant Western worldviews which separate humans from other life forms contribute to ecological degradation.  For climate justice, this hard-wired worldview needs to be disrupted. Drawing on multiple examples from Africa, we conclude that ways to do this require the foregrounding of cognitive justice which includes recognising the validity of multiple knowledges, learning from others and supporting communities’ in their struggles for reparation, reclamation and conservation of their land. These actions can be amplified in engagements which disrupt the unsustainable behaviour and policies of the wealthy. We argue that radical popular education in these times is climate just and ecofeminist. (DIPF/Orig.

Razlogi za ekofeministično ljudsko izobraževanje v času COVID-19

Ecofeminism offers a framework that brings together patriarchy, capitalism, and the degradation of the environment, and helps to make sense of and address a world in desperate need of radical transformation. The Covid-19 pandemic has magnified existing fault lines of inequality, poverty, gender-based violence, and turbulence in the biosphere. This paper uses an ecofeminist lens to critically investigate the case of a woman’s health course that employs a popular education approach. As imbedded activist researchers, we question how the curriculum should change so that the knowledge generated really becomes useful for transformative action. Thus, the paper brings together popular education theory and ecofeminism. After an overview of ecofeminist principles, we introduce a case study to apply these principles. We conclude that elements which relate to the participants’ lives in immediate ways, like food security and water, are entry points for challenging the perception of Nature as a “thing” rather than as a complex interrelated ecosystem. We argue that ecofeminist principles have widespread relevance for popular education and its transformative impulses beyond Covid-19.Ekofeminizem ponuja ogrodje, ki naslavlja problematiko patriarhata, kapitalizma in degradacije okolja ter pomaga osmisliti svet, ki nujno potrebuje radikalne spremembe. Epidemija COVID-19 je še bolj očitno zarisala prepade neenakosti in revščine, spolnega nasilja ter turbulenc v biosferi. Članek v luči ekofeminizma kritično analizira primer zdravstvenega tečaja za ženske, zasnovanega na podlagi ljudskega izobraževanja (popular education). Avtorici se kot aktivistki in raziskovalki sprašujeta, kako bi bilo treba spremeniti učni načrt, da bi pridobljeno znanje postalo resnično uporabno in transformativno. Članek tako združuje teorijo ljudskega izobraževanja in ekofeminizma. Po pregledu načel ekofeminizma je predstavljena študija primera v praksi, zaključek pa prikaže, da so elementi, ki se neposredno nanašajo na življenja sodelujočih, na primer zagotavljanje hrane in vode, vstopne točke, prek katerih je možno izpodbijati idejo narave kot »stvari« in vzpostaviti dojemanje narave kot kompleksnega in medsebojno povezanega ekosistema. Tudi zunaj konteksta COVID-19 so ekofeministična načela širšega pomena za ljudsko izobraževanje in njegove transformativne pobude

A PLACE IN SOCIETY? STRENGTHENING LIVELIHOOD OPPORTUNITIES FOR STREET CHILDREN – A RIGHTS-BASED APPROACH

Most peoples’ encounter with street children is at a robot or walking along the pavement, wherethey try and avoid neglected-looking young boys or girls sleeping, begging or walkingunsteadily while sniffing on plastic bottles filled with cobbler’s glue. We know little of theirlives as our interactions are often brief and withdrawn. Whether we think of them as homeless,desperate, “victims of harsh circumstances” or a nuisance in need of care and rehabilitation, weswiftly delete their presence from our minds and move on. As Glauser (cited in Van Beers,1996:195) suggests, “in the eyes of a large proportion of society, including policy makers andimplementers, street children disrupt the tranquillity, stability and normality of society”.Because of this public perception, children of the street are often convenient culprits and atarget of blame for our own sense of insecurity, fear and inadequacy in a competitive world thatdemands ever more

Navigating our way: a compass for popular educators

This article addresses the tensions and contradictions of applying a popular education approach in the current context of South Africa. It draws upon data from an 18-month research project exploring the traditions of popular education. It presents an extended discussion on the meanings of popular education, and their varied implications for practice. It presents a heuristic device in the form of a ‘compass’, to assist popular educators locate themselves in their work at different historical moments.National Institute for the Humanities and Social SciencesWeb of Scienc

Think Piece: Working for Living - Popular Education as/at Work for Social-ecological Justice

Drawing on the working lives of popular educators who are striving for socioeconomic and socio-ecological  justice, we demonstrate how popular education is a form of care work which is feminised, often undervalued and unrecognised as highly skilled work. It is relational work that aims to forge solidarity with communities and the environment. Given the state of the planet, the radical transformations that are needed, and the future projection of ‘work’ as including the care economy in large measure, we argue that popular education is a generative site for further exploration of research into work and learning. However, to move popular education as work from the margins means to rethink the current economic system of value. Addressing the contradiction that undervalues work for life/living, popular education engages transformative action motivated by a deep sense of solidarity and a focus on imagining alternatives as an act of hope.Keywords: work and learning, popular education, care work, solidarit

Making beauty necessary and necessary beautiful

The article shows how unemployed working-class women in South Africa, through collective aesthetic experiences, achieved a sense of catharsis that strengthened the resolve to work towards creating alternatives. The text is based on a series of popular education workshops that were recorded in sound and images, and interviews with individual emerging artists. It draws on theory developed in practice by workers in the nineteen-eighties when they asserted their dignity and humanity as creative subjects and demonstrates how the women, some twenty-five years later, articulate a similar defiance. The article suggests that certain preconditions must be met before the process of conscientisation through creative work can achieve its objective of preparing participants for action: repoliticise art and education by building radically horizontal relationships; create a playful third space for experimentation and generating knowledge, and encourage improvisations that allow contradictions to emerge and be examined critically. (DIPF/Orig.

Ecological Solidarity and Popular Education

This text begins with the assertion that we need to listen to nature and recognise the interconnectedness of all beings and living. I outline three principles central to a Freirean approach in popular education: political purpose and bias of the educator; dialogue as an epistemological and ontological process; and the ‘vocation’ of humanization. Using an eco-feminist lens, I then suggest that ecological solidarity: being part of, rather than apart-from, nature, must be a crucial part of any education going forward. This leads me to take the notion of emancipation away from individual, personal freedom towards a practical embracing of interdependence and interrelatedness as inscribed in the original meaning of ‘ubuntu’.Este texto assenta no princípio que devemos ouvir a natureza e reconhecer a interconexão de todos os seres vivos. Destaco três princípios centrais da posição Freiriana sobre educação popular: intencionalidade política e preconceitos do educador; o diálogo como um processo epistemológico e ontológico; e a “vocação” da humanização. Partindo de uma lente ecofeminista, sugiro que solidariedade ecológica – ser uma parte de, em vez de apartada da natureza – deve ser tomada como fator essencial para qualquer educação no/do futuro. Isto faz com que se afaste a noção de emancipação de qualquer ideia de liberdade individual ou pessoal, e a alie a práticas de interdependência e de inter-relações como as inscritas no siginificado original da palavra “ubuntu”.Este texto comienza con la afirmación de que debemos escuchar a la naturaleza y reconocer la interconexión de todos los seres vivos. Esbozo tres principios centrales para un enfoque freireano en la educación popular: propósito político y prejuicio del educador; el diálogo como proceso epistemológico y ontológico; y la "vocación" de humanización. Usando una lente ecofeminista, sugiero que la solidaridad ecológica: ser parte de la naturaleza, en lugar de estar separada de ella, debe ser una parte crucial de cualquier educación en el futuro. Esto me lleva a alejar la noción de emancipación de la libertad individual y personal hacia una adopción práctica de la interdependencia y la interrelación, tal como se inscribe en el significado original de “Ubuntu”