NORRAG at WCCES - Panel on Transforming Knowledge for Just and Sustainable Futures

Transforming Knowledge for Just and Sustainable Futures: Implications for Education Policy and Research

Part One: Implications for Education Policy

On July 23rd, NORRAG’s Executive Director, Moira Faul, participated to a panel of the XVIII Wolrd Congress Comparative Education Societies. The panel was part one of a two-panel proposal on Transforming Knowledge for Just and Sustainable Futures: Implications for Education Policy and Research. Developed by a team of scholars and activists working with the UNESCO Research and Foresight Team to understand better how epistemic justice can be realised through education and research, this first panel aimed to provide an overarching rationale for transforming knowledge in the interests of epistemic justice, realising more sustainable futures, and considers the broad implications for education policy. 

Moira’s presentation Complex links between education and other sustainability objectives addressed the category error in thinking that the contemporary rediscovery of  thinking in systems by the Global North is novel, rather than acknowledging the long histories of systems approaches in other knowledge systems and practices (Kimmerer, 2013; Shiva, 2013). The historical hegemony of knowledge from the Global North over other forms of knowledge was ‘achieved at the cost of tremendous silencing’ (Odora Hoppers, 2002, p. 27). The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) started from the premise that economic, environmental and social goals should appear in the same global policy agenda, and recognised the normative, policy and practical implications of that. This paper examines (1) how these “deep interconnections and many cross-cutting elements across the new Goals and targets” (UNGA, 2015, p.6 §17) have been translated into research, (2) the complex interactions and interconnectedness between education and other sustainability objectives, and (3) the exclusion of non-Western knowledge systems in this latest generation of systems thinking. Working with other knowledge systems and practices, and acknowledging the power relations that maintain the dominance of our current model will be crucial to realising the goals and developing the next global sustainability policy agenda.

Panel abstract (lead author Leon Tikly, with input from the panel members)

The Cameroonian critical theorist Achille Mbembe has recently argued that addressing the challenges of the 21st Century, including climate change, inequality, the threats posed by global pandemics such as COVID-19 and the opportunities and risks associated with the rise of new technologies, requires the development of a new planetary consciousness. This new consciousness requires the development of a new kind of intelligence that is more holistic and interconnected, and that must emerge from paying attention to three sets of relationships, namely, our relationships with nature, with technology and with each other. Underpinning each must be an ethics of care based on recognising our ‘all-worldness’ as human beings. Developing such a consciousness requires breaking from a Western-centric view of knowledge and instead drawing on ‘all of the archives of the world’, including IK systems that have been neglected and marginalised through colonialism. Mbembe identifies traditional African knowledge systems built on the principle of ubuntu (the interconnectedness of all people and all living things), as having an important role. Challenging existing knowledge hierarchies and hegemonies and embracing epistemic pluralism to develop a new kind of education appropriate for the 21st Century also lies at the heart of UNESCO’s thinking. The report of the International Commission on the Futures of Education (UNESCO, 2021) calls for cooperation and solidarity to strengthen ‘planetary consciousness’, complex ecologies of knowledge, acknowledging the necessity of drawing upon the diversity of knowledge systems and sources (p. 126-127). This conception of a multiplicity of knowledge advocates for the inclusion of ideas and thoughts that celebrate a greater diversity of possible futures beyond the present’ (p. 126) and legitimises ‘diverse sources of knowledge to the exigencies of the present and future’ (p. 126).

However, while drawing on diverse knowledge systems as a basis for realising more just and sustainable futures is a necessary and noble aspiration, it raises fundamental questions about how we conceive of knowledge. These questions are explored through the papers presented in the panel. Each makes a powerful case for transforming knowledge, albeit from different starting points. The first paper by Tikly provides a conceptual foundation for the panel. It asks what ‘knowledge’ means in relation to epistemic, social and environmental justice and makes an overall case as to why knowledge, research and education need to be transformed. The second paper by Srivastava focuses on the increasing role of philanthropic capitalism in the education sector and the implications this has for how we conceive of the knowledge commons, whilst the third paper by Faul focuses on our understanding of complexity in education and sustainability research in the interests of epistemic justice.

List of presenters and affiliations

Chair: Professor Joan De Jaeghere, University of Minnesota 

Respondent: Dr Keith Holmes, Education Research and Foresight Team, UNESCO 

Presenter one: Professor Leon Tikly, University of Bristol, UNESCO Chair on Transforming Knowledge and Research for Just and Sustainable Futures 

Presenter two: Dr Prachi Srivastava, Western University, Ontario, Canada 

Presenter three: Dr Moira Faul, NORRAG, Geneva Graduate Institute 

References 

Kimmerer, R. W. (2013). Braiding sweetgrass: Indigenous wisdom, scientific  

knowledge and the teachings of plants. Milkweed Editions.  

Odora Hoppers, C. A. (Ed.). (2002). Indigenous knowledge and the integration of  

knowledge systems: Towards a philosophy of articulation. New Africa Books. 

Shiva, V. (2013). Making peace with earth. Pluto Press. 

UNGA: UN General Assembly. (2015). Transforming our world: The 2030 Agenda for sustainable development. Resolution 70/1. Adopted by the General Assembly on 25 September 2015. doi:10.1007/s13398-014-0173-7.2.