Transforming Education for Sustainable Futures: Intersecting dynamics of food, water, livelihoods and education in the COVID-19 pandemic
- Authors: Velempini, Kgosietsile , Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Kulundu, Injairu M , Maqwelane, Lwanda , James, Anna , Mphepo, Gibson Y , Dyantyi, Phila , Kunkwenza, Esthery
- Date: 2022
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/389903 , vital:68494 , xlink:href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/211392"
- Description: Since 2019, the COVID-19 pandemic has posed challenges to but also highlighted the urgent need for transforming education for sustainable futures. The purpose of this article is to share insights gained from a southern African study on intersecting influences of water, food, livelihoods and education, and what they mean for Education for Sustainable Development going forward. The interest is to learn from this study in ways that can inform transformation of education for sustainable futures in southern Africa going forward. The study involved a number of early career researchers in SADC countries, and was conducted via an online approach during the early days of the pandemic. It followed a qualitative research design, employed document analysis, interviews and questionnaires, and drew on a systems perspective to inform analysis. The findings are as relevant today as they were in the pandemic, and point to the importance of giving attention to intersecting issues that affect education. The study highlights six transformative praxis pathways for transforming education for sustainable futures.
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- Date Issued: 2022
Think Piece. Intersectional Resonance and the Multiplicity of Being in a Polarised World
- Authors: Kulundu, Injairu M
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/388037 , vital:68301 , xlink:href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/172212"
- Description: Understandings of collective learning and change agency often conjure up an image of a particular group or community identifying important concerns and finding the momentum to learn together to address them. In reality, gaining consensus around what issues need to be addressed is a complex process in polarised societies. It requires an attentiveness to different standpoints and experiences of the social dynamics at play, and the ways in which ecological, political, socio-economic and psychic experiences manifest themselves within different contexts, generating disparate and connected views on what is missing and what is needed to create a more just society. This paper asks questions about what it means to learn in-between and through complex and interrelated societal dynamics amongst a community of change drivers. By highlighting the individual, communal and collective learning of a diverse group of change drivers in a very polarised South Africa, we can begin to ask questions about the following: 1) how different embodied experiences or ‘a multiplicity of being’, as referred to in this paper, are essential in the pursuit of a sustainable society; and 2) why we need to learn in ways that can foster a sense of ‘intersectional resonance’ between and amongst change drivers in a polarised world.
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- Date Issued: 2018
Change Drivers at the front lines of the future: rising cultures for sustainability education in contemporary South Africa
- Authors: Kulundu, Injairu M
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/437107 , vital:73331 , ISBN 978-0-620-79605-7 , https://doi.org/10.3920/978-90-8686-846-9_33
- Description: This chapter asks us to regenerate and re-imagine what a dis-tinctively young and contemporary feeling of Environmental and Sustainability Education could look like in the African con-text. It asks us to acknowledge the ingenious ways that Change Drivers in South Africa and Africa are moving towards their visions of the common good. The chapter invites us to trace and learn from the transgressive learning and nomadic journeys of young Change Drivers who are part of a network called Activate! Change Drivers. Activate! Change Drivers is one of the largest youth led movements in South Africa. It is a network of young leaders equipped to drive change for the common good in South Africa. In a world that is uncertain and unknown the embodied knowledge of Change Drivers in South Africa can help us as practitioners think carefully and critically about how to learn for an unknown and predominantly young future.
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- Date Issued: 2017
A reflection on the use of case studies as a methodology for social learning research in sub Saharan Africa
- Authors: Cundill, Georgina , Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Mukute, Mutizwa , Belay, Million , Shackleton, Sheona E , Kulundu, Injairu M
- Date: 2014
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/436636 , vital:73288 , ISBN 1573-5214 , https://doi.org/10.1016/j.njas.2013.04.001
- Description: A recent review has highlighted that the methodology most commonly employed to research social learning has been the individual case study. We draw on four examples of social learning research in the environmental and sustainability sci-ences from sub-Saharan Africa to reflect on possible reasons behind the preponderance of case study research in this field, and to identify common elements that may be significant for social learning research more generally. We find that a com-mon interest in change oriented social learning, and therefore processes of change, makes case studies a necessary ap-proach because long term process analyses are required that are sensitive to social-ecological contexts. Common elements of the examples reflected upon included: a focus on initiating, tracking and/or understanding a process of change toward sustainability; long term research; an action research agenda that involves reflecting on data with research participants; and temporal, process based analysis of data coupled with in-depth theoretical analysis. This paper highlights that there is significant scope for exploratory research that compares case studies of social learning research to generate a deeper un-derstanding of social learning processes, and their relationship to human agency and societal change.
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- Date Issued: 2014
In pursuit of participation tracking the influence of local action for sustainable development
- Authors: Kulundu, Injairu M
- Date: 2012
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/437123 , vital:73332 , ISBN 978-1-919991-81-8 , https://transformativelearning.education/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/reviews-on-social-learning-literature.pdf
- Description: This literature review charts the cumulative lessons that have emerged from the participatory development discourse in its various guises over the past fifty years, relating them to current emerging perspectives on social learning. Acknowledging the tensions that occur when the theoreti-cally sound proponents of the participatory discourse are translated into practice, this review seeks to outline the practical and ethical implications of this terrain. It will do so with reference to three points in its evolution: the great influence of Participatory Development (popularly known through focuses such as Participatory Rural Appraisal), the effect of Hu-man Development and the Capabilities Approach, and lastly, the growing discourse on Social Learning and what its ideas contribute to the dis-course. As such the paper helps to ‘locate’ social learning discourse within the wider arena of participatory development, showing the antecedent links that exist between social learning discourse (as it is emerging today), and wider participatory development discourses. The paper argues that more attention needs to be given to the ‘hidden work’ involved in turning all of these theories of participatory development, learning and agency into practice, and that the discourses can only really live in practice, a process for which we can only partially be prepared for by our literature (re)views.
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- Date Issued: 2012
Simulating Collective agency: Joint purpose, presence and power as Constraints to learning in a social Context
- Authors: Kulundu, Injairu M
- Date: 2011
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/386530 , vital:68149 , xlink:href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/122249"
- Description: This paper reflects on the practice of social learning by using my experiences as a social development practitioner in two projects. The first, the Arkwork Collective, is an art-junk process that engages marginalised youth in Grahamstown, South Africa in a process that uses creative sculpture and drama to explore personal and social issues that exist in their immediate context. The second, Jonga Phambili Sinethemba looks into the impact of climate change and HIV/AIDS (amongst other issues) in the rural and peri-urban communities of Willowvale and Lesseyton in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. It seeks to provide a platform where members of each community can define the vulnerabilities, capabilities, social networks in their areas with the aim of bolstering the adaptive capacity of these communities. Snippets of my experiences in these projects are shared with the intention of demonstrating constraints to learning in a social context. Key ideas that the paper explores include honouring the lived experiences of participants as part of the process, prioritising the participation of each individual present as part of the ongoing conversation, the challenge of surfacing the vital independent links of a collective, drawing on the reflective capacity of a diverse group, assessing the quality of participation, building capabilities for ‘response-ability’ and rethinking facilitation. Each section sets out challenges and questions for practitioners in this field to reflect on. The paper suggests that in order to achieve the laudable aims of social learning, we need to peel back the common rhetoric of its participatory aims and acknowledge the complexity, flexibility and dedication that it requires.
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- Date Issued: 2011
Participatory human development in post-apartheid South Africa: a discussion of the 2006/7 Tantyi Youth Empowerment Project
- Authors: Kulundu, Injairu M
- Date: 2010
- Subjects: Spirals Trust (South Africa) Community development -- South Africa -- Citizen participation Economic development projects -- South Africa -- Citizen participation Youth in development -- South Africa Non-governmental organizations -- South Africa Post-apartheid era -- South Africa South Africa -- Politics and government -- 1994-
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2791 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003001
- Description: This thesis relates the work of a non-governmental organisation, The Spirals Trust, to discussions on human and participatory development. The focus of the study is one of The Spirals Trust’s projects, the 2006/7 Tantyi Youth Empowerment Project, which is discussed in relation to theoretical material on human development and participatory development. Collectively these perspectives are defined in this thesis as ‘participatory human development’. The 2006/7 Tantyi Youth Empowerment Project illustrates some of the challenges that face the practice of participatory human development. Workshops and focus group interviews were conducted with participants who were part of the 2006/7 Tantyi Youth Empowerment Project in order to draw out their experiences of the project. Questions were created from themes that emerged from the participants’ discussion of their experiences and these questions were then posed to members of staff of The Spirals Trust. The experiences of both the participants and the staff members are discussed in order to explore issues that emerge in the practice of participatory human development in the 2006/7 Tantyi Youth Empowerment Project. The results highlight the challenges of putting into action the tenets of participatory human development. Feedback showed that a focus on personal development can help cultivate the ethic of participation. The effort that this entailed on the part of facilitators is discussed. The importance of exposing and continually working with power dynamics that may emerge in projects of this nature is revealed and the eroding influence of bureaucratic compliance in projects like this one is explored. The study also suggests that there is a need to promote development initiatives that challenge the political status quo rather than just finding ways to incorporate the marginalised more effectively into current systems. New questions that the research poses to the practice of participatory human development are considered in conjunction with suggestions for further research.
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- Date Issued: 2010