A radical holistic edge-fusion learning space with a collection of really useful collaborative tools for making social-ecological just change.
Radical Learning for Action
Adult Education
Everything needs to change! Co-Researcher KOB
“Washing one’s hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral.”
Paulo Freire. 'The Politics of Education'
The field of Adult Education central to this research draws from feminist and popular education movements in which consciousness raising education has a central role.​ These form of education are group-based 'learning for action' process which produce knowledge to collectively empower people to tackle the systemic root cause of social inequality. Praxis is a 'learning for action' process which is used in Adult Education and PAR​​. In this project, creative and nature-based praxis workshops were co-developed with public co-researchers using a participatory action research approach, which originated from the Latin American popular education movement and resonates with feminist bottom-up approaches to knowledge making. It is explicitly political knowledge making orientated to social justice​​​​​​
Praxis Diagrams
Praxis Journey Trail: How recurring praxis workshops generated actions which lead to new social actions.
This type of learning and knowledge making can be referred to as emancipatory learning which is rooted in British working class struggles. It is:
‘Learning which involves exploring the root causes of social-environmental injustice and how to take action on them. It is not concerned with strategies for personal self-improvement via an undue emphasis on academic qualifications. Its purpose is to develop understanding and knowledge about the nature and root causes of unsatisfactory circumstances in order to develop real strategies to change them. These kinds of knowledge, pedagogy and educational relationships are collaborative and formed in solidarity with the interests of the least powerful in society to bring about change in the interests of social justice… It is associated in the literature of adult education with some other, related ideas: for example, Really useful Knowledge, Critical Thinking, Conscientisation, and Transformation. These are all ideas which come together in the campaign for Popular Education’ (Thompson, 2000, p. 1).
Antonio Gramsci highlighted that, 'the greatest trick of oppressive power is to convince people that change is not possible'. The job of Adult Education is to critically reflect on that idea and raise consciousness of our collective capacity to bring about alternatives that better serve people.
It is hopeful education.