Cognitive justice and environmental learning in South African social movements
- Authors: Burt, Jane Caroline
- Date: 2021-04
- Subjects: Transformative learning , Water security -- South Africa , Environmental education -- South Africa , EEASA (Organization) , Civil society -- South Africa , Water justice , Cognitive justice
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/174437 , vital:42477 , http://dx.doi.org/10.21504/10962/174437
- Description: This thesis by publication is an applied study into transformative learning as an emancipatory practice for water justice. It is guided by the core research question: How can cognitively just learning be an activist practice in social movements working towards water justice? To address this question, I use the applied critical realist approach which makes use of three moments of moral reasoning which are very similar to the approach adopted in the learning intervention that is the focus of this research. These three moments are: Diagnose, Explain, Act – sometimes known as the DEA model (Bhaskar, 2008, 243; Munnik & Price, 2015). The research object is the Changing Practice course for community-based environmental and social movements. The course was developed and studied over seven years, starting from the reflexive scholarship of environmental learning in South Africa, particularly the adult learning model of working together/working away developed through the Environmental Education Association of Southern Africa in partnership with the Environmental Learning Research Centre at Rhodes University (Lotz-Sisitka & Raven, 2004). We (the facilitators/educators) ran the Changing Practice course three times (2012-2014; 2014-2016; 2016-2018), in which I generated substantive data which forms the empirical base on which this study was developed. We found the concept of cognitive justice (Visvanathan, 2005; de Sousa Santos, 2016) to be a powerful mobilizing concept with which to carry out emancipatory research and learning, in three ways. First, it brought together a group of researchers, activists and practitioners from different organizations to work on how to strengthen the role of civil society in monitoring government water policy and practice (Wilson et al., 2016). Second, within the Changing Practice course itself, it became a principle for guiding learning design and pedagogy as well as a way of engaging in dialogue with the participants around the politics of knowledge, exclusion and inclusion in knowledge production, systems of oppression and multiple knowledges (Wilson et al., 2016; Burt et al., 2018). Thirdly, the participants’ change projects (the applied projects undertaken during the ‘working away’ phase between course modules), allowed participants to draw on different knowledge systems, which they learnt to do in the ‘working together’ modules, and to address cognitive justice concerns linked to environmental justice. The change projects also challenged our learning pedagogy by raising contradictions in the course’s approach to learning that needed to be transformed in order for our pedagogy to be more cognitively just. Throughout this thesis I argue that the work of cognitive justice deepens the connections between people, institutions and structures, particularly in relation to transformative learning. Our intention was to identify and critique structures and ideologies that perpetuated oppressive relations, and then to identify and enact the work needed towards transforming these relations. This is why I often refer to cognitive justice as a solidarity and mobilizing concept, and I use the term cognitive justice praxis to mean the reflection and actions that are needed to enact cognitive just learning. The facilitators and participants of the Changing Practice course worked to remove the layered effects of oppression both in the practice of water justice and in the learning process itself. We worked, however imperfectly, with a caring, collectively-held ethic towards each other and the world. Using the DEA model I applied the critical realist dialectic to analyse contradictions and generate explanations through four articles as reflexive writing projects (See Part 2 of this thesis). I used the critical realist dialectic both to reveal contradictions, investigate how these contradictions have come to be, and to generate alternative explanations and action to absent them. Through this research I identified four essential mechanisms for cognitively just environmental learning: care work, co-learning, reflexivity and an interdisciplinary approach to learning scholarship as learning praxis. The essential elements that made the Changing Practice course so effective were the working together/working away design, the encouraging of participants to make the change project something they were passionate about, and the situating and grounding of the Changing Practice course within a social movement network. We were able to show that for academic scholarship to contribute meaningfully to cognitively just learning praxis, it needs to be collaborative and reflexive, and start from the embodied historical and contextual experience of learning as experienced and understood by participants on the course. This demanded an interdisciplinary approach to work with contradictions in learning practice, one that could take into consideration different knowledges and knowledge practices beyond professional disciplines. Both social movement communities and scholarly communities have valuable knowledge to offer each other. As argued in article one, rather than a lack of knowledge, what more often limits our emancipatory action are factors that prevent us from coming closer together. (Burt et al, 2018) This research revealed that social movement learning towards water justice is multi-level care work, the four levels being: individual psychology, our relations with others, our relations with structures such as our social movements, and our relations with the planet. When such care work attains self- reflexivity, practice-reflexivity, co-learning and collective scholarship, it is able to absent the contradictions that inhibit cognitive justice. This thesis is a record of our attempts to learn how to achieve this.
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- Date Issued: 2021-04
A theory-based approach to evaluating a Continuing Teacher Professional Development Programme aimed at strengthening environment and sustainability education
- Authors: Songqwaru, Nonyameko Zintle
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: Fundisa for Change , Environmental education -- South Africa , Teachers -- Training of -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/145267 , vital:38423
- Description: This study uses a theory-based approach to evaluate the Fundisa for Change training programme, a continuing teacher professional development programme aimed at strengthening environment and sustainability education. The aim of the study was to surface assumptions that underpin the design and implementation of the Fundisa for Change training programme. The Fundisa for Change Teacher Education programme is a national collaborative programme that is implemented in all the nine provinces of South Africa. The study reports on the implementation of the programme in five provinces. The study aimed to surface the Fundisa for Change training programme’s implementation theory and programme theory as these affect programme delivery. The Fundisa for Change training programme was implemented in diverse contexts by different facilitators to different participants. To determine how training programme outcomes were achieved, use was made of context-mechanism-outcome (CMO) configurations for each site where the programme was implemented. Data used to construct CMO configurations was generated through document analysis of Fundisa for Change documents, interviews with stakeholders and participants, as well as observations of programme implementation at five sites. There were three phases to data analysis: content analysis of Fundisa for Change documents, content analysis of observation transcripts and use of the CMO configuration, an analytical tool used in realist evaluation. An initial CMO configuration was constructed prior to observing implementation of the programme and a refined CMO configuration for the Fundisa for Change training programme was constructed based on similarities between the CMO configurations constructed for each of the five sites under study. The partnership model of the Fundisa for Change training programme brought diverse expertise and resources (material, cognitive, social and emotional) which were conducive to the achievement of programme outcomes. The programme’s action context (structure, culture, agency and relations) contributed to the achievement of programme outcomes by participants. Participants’ subject content knowledge, teaching practice and assessment practice was enhanced through attending the Fundisa for Change training. On-course tasks were mediated during training and this created opportunities for participants to discuss and reflect on current practice in ways that could lead to a change in practice. In evaluating professional development programmes, an elaborated definition of context in terms of structure, culture, agency and relations enables a comprehensive exploration of potential programme mechanisms that can be activated when programmes are implemented. It is also important to disaggregate resources and reasons when identifying mechanisms as this assists with differentiating between context and mechanisms. The study offers insights into the professional learning of teachers grappling with new content and pedagogical content knowledges related to environment in the context of recent curriculum changes where the South African national school curriculum has come into focus. Environmental education programmes in South Africa have implicitly used a realist approach. This study offers the first substantive professional learning evaluation that develops this approach explicitly using Theory of Change and Realist Evaluation in combination.
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- Date Issued: 2020
In-betweenness: a postcolonial exploration of sociocultural intergenerational learning through cattle as a medium of cultural expression in Mpembeni, KwaZulu-Natal
- Authors: Masuku, Lynette Sibongile
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Postcolonialism , Environmental education -- South Africa , Community education -- South Africa -- KwaZulu Natal , Non-formal education -- South Africa -- KwaZulu Natal , Agricultural education -- South Africa -- KwaZulu Natal , Livestock -- Handling -- South Africa -- KwaZulu Natal , Cattle -- Handling -- South Africa -- KwaZulu Natal , Cattle herding -- South Africa -- KwaZulu Natal , Life skills -- Study and teaching -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/68181 , vital:29213
- Description: This case study was conducted in a small rural community called Mpembeni, in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province. It was motivated by my observation of high levels of competence in ‘cattle knowledge’ amongst children coupled with a simultaneous failure at school. I view schools as integral parts of the community and consider them as being influenced by the community, which they in turn influence. This study set out to understand that which embodied informal learning in home/pasture-based contexts as well as formalised learning processes in schools. I used Sociocultural theory as the most congruent of educational theories to surface and illuminate the intergenerational learning processes that were taking place in the area. This warranted my use of research investigation methods that could, in non-intrusive ways, expose the everyday community practices that related to cattle as a particular medium of cultural expression. Ethnography, sourced from anthropology, aided by ethnomethods, was not only compatible with my study and the way in which I wanted to write out the research report, but also with my educational theory and its counterhegemonic intents. To understand the colonialities that framed the discord that embodied home and school as learning contexts, I used postcolonial theory, not only as a lens but as a counterhegemonic response. This theory also informed my research methodology as well as afforded me the reflexivity tools for an examination of my own intergenerational learning and the relational identities of myself as ‘Other’ in the lives of the research participants. It further facilitated the exploration of the potential for potential hybrid third spaces within the bubbling meeting nodes of the socio-cultural context of school and home/pasture based settings of learning. I observed cattle herding related practices, interviewed children, their parents and/or carers, dipping tank managers, livestock inspectors, community elders and members. I also analysed some of the written and unwritten content that made up the formal and informal based learning processes and reviewed some of the most recent South African Curriculum Statements and related texts on the representations of cattle. I sought views from teachers on their interactions with the people of Mpembeni, whose children they taught. I also explored axes of tension, silences and presences on anything related to cattle in schools. I argue and make a case for the development of thought by African scholars to advance Africa’s education rather than aid mimicry and the importation of theories of little congruence and relevance to the African context and Africa’s future. The study has made some contributions to new knowledge. This is in its exploration of sociocultural intergenerational methods and techniques that are employed for learning in community contexts, highlighting the importance of surfacing and understanding of children’s knowledge and experiences. The study has gone further to deliberate the in-betweenness of school and home learning environments, highlighting and unsilencing silenced, peripherised, new, old, considered irrelevant in the past, context and time congruent and liberatory knowledges. I propose that the knowledges located in these cleavages of difference be utilised to transform and create learning bridges between home and school environments. I propose that those ways of knowing that see others as nothings, be exposed and unlearned. Methods of learning that naturally unfold at home could be replicated at school with a recognition of the intergenerational methods, techniques, practices and the learning values in a critically constructive manner that narrows difference and othering.
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- Date Issued: 2019
Drawing on principles of Dance Movement Therapy practice in a South African water research context
- Authors: Copteros, Athina
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: Water-supply -- Management -- South Africa , Dance therapy , Movement therapy , Dance therapy -- South Africa , Movement therapy -- South Africa , Interdisciplinary research , Interdisciplinary approach to knowledge , Environmental education , Environmental education -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/50759 , vital:26024
- Description: Research that draws on principles of Dance Movement Therapy in a South African water research context has not been done before. In order to initiate this exploration, culturally relevant themes from professional training in the United Kingdom were identified that could be developed in the context of trans-disciplinary water resource management research in South Africa. Hermeneutic phenomenology provided the methodological framing for this study. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis was used to discover culturally relevant themes based on the recorded perceptions of the phenomenon of the training while it was taking place. The themes of: ‘awareness of power and difference'; ‘therapeutic adaptability'; ‘safety and ownership' and ‘connecting with the environment' emerged as overriding themes. Influences from Artistic Inquiry informed the inclusion of a creative embodied response to the themes that emerged. These themes then informed the application of some relevant principles of Dance Movement Therapy practice within a trans-disciplinary complex social-ecological systems researcher group. Eight members of the group participated in the study. They represented a range of academic research roles, genders and backgrounds. They reflected on their experience of an introductory session and five Dance Movement Therapy based sessions in semi-structured interviews. Using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, four themes were identified that capture the quality of the participants' shared experience of the phenomenon: ‘community engagement'; ‘embodiment'; ‘individual and group identity' and ‘integration'. Based on the integration of themes, it is concluded that principles of Dance Movement Therapy have a contribution to make. Core tenets of Dance Movement Therapy such as: inclusion of body and emotion; healing from trauma through embodiment; group processes held with safety and acceptance; and a deep level of connection to self, each other and the wider ecology, address some of the basic challenges of trans-disciplinary complex social ecological systems research practice. Through researchers experiencing principles of DMT practice for themselves and reflecting on their experience, it is possible that their embodied knowledge and reflections will influence and inform their engagement with communities in the future.
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- Date Issued: 2017
Can expansive (social) learning processes strengthen organisational learning for improved wetland management in a plantation forestry company, and if so how? : a case study of Mondi
- Authors: Lindley, David Stewart
- Date: 2014
- Subjects: Mondi Group , Wetland management -- South Africa , Wetland conservation -- Study and teaching (Continuing education) , Employees -- Training of -- South Africa , Action theory , Critical realism , Social learning , Environmental education -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:2003 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1015661
- Description: Mondi is an international packaging and paper company that manages over 300 000 ha of land in South Africa. After over a decade of working with Mondi to improve its wetland management, wetland sustainability practices were still not integrated into the broader forestry operations, despite some significant cases of successful wetland rehabilitation. An interventionist research project was therefore conducted to explore the factors inhibiting improved wetland management, and determine if and how expansive social learning processes could strengthen organisational learning and development to overcome these factors. In doing so, the research has investigated how informal adult learning supports organisational change to strengthen wetland and environmental sustainability practices, within a corporate plantation forestry context. How individual and/or group-based learning interactions translate to the collective, at the level of organisational change was a key issue probed in this study. The following three research questions were used to guide the research: 1. What tensions and contradictions exist in wetland management in a plantation forestry company? 2. Can expansive learning begin to address the tensions and contradictions that exist in wetland management in a plantation forestry company, for improved sustainability practices? 3. Can expansive social learning strengthen organisational learning and development, enabling Mondi to improve its wetland sustainability practices, and if so how does it do this? Cultural historical activity theory (CHAT) and the theory of expansive learning provided an epistemological framework for the research. The philosophy of critical realism gave ontological depth to the research, and contributed to a deeper understanding of CHAT and expansive learning. Critical realism was therefore used as a philosophy to underlabour the theoretical framework of the research. However CHAT and expansive learning could not provide the depth of detail required to explain how the expansive learning, organisational social change, and boundary crossings that are necessary for assembling the collective were taking place. Realist social theory (developed out of critical realism by Margaret Archer as an ontologically located theory of how and why social change occurs, or does not) supported the research to do this. The morphogenetic framework was used as a methodology for applying realist social theory. The expansive learning cycle was used as a methodology for applying CHAT and the theory of expansive learning; guiding the development of new knowledge creation required by Mondi staff to identify contradictions and associated tensions inhibiting wetland management, understand their root causes, and develop solutions. Through the expansive learning process, the tensions and contradictions become generative as a tool supporting expansive social learning, rather than as a means to an end where universal consensus was reached on how to circumvent the contradictions. The research was conducted in five phases: • Phase 1: Contextual profiling to identify and describe three activity systems in Mondi responsible for wetland management: 1) siviculture foresters; 2) environmental specialists; 3) community engagement facilitators. The data was generated and analysed through through document analysis, 17 interviews, 2nd generation CHAT analysis, and Critical Realist generative mechanism analysis; • Phase 2: Analysis and identification of tensions and contradictions through a first interventionist workshop. Modelling new solutions to deal with contractions, and examining and testing new models in and after the second interventionist workshop; • Phase 3: Implementing new models as wetland management projects and involved project implementation. This included boundary crossing practices of staff in the three activity systems, reflection and re-view in a further five progress review/interventionist workshops, and a management meeting and seminar; • Phase 4: Reflecting on the expansive learning process, results, and consolidation of changed practices, through nine reflective interviews and field observations; • Phase 5: Morphogenic/stasis analysis of the organisational change and development catalysed via the expansive social learning process (or not). The research found that expansive social learning processes supported organisational learning and development for improved wetland management by: 1) strengthening the scope, depth, and sophistication of participant understanding; 2) expanding the ways staff interact and collaboratively work together; 3) democratising decision making; 4) improving social relations between staff, reducing power differentials, and creating stronger relationships; 5) enhancing participant reflexivity through deeper understanding of social structures and cultural systems, and changing them to support improved wetland and environmental practice of staff, and developing the organisational structures and processes to strengthen organisational learning and development; and 6) using the contradictions identified as generative mechanisms to stimulate and catalyse organisational learning and development for changed wetland/environmental management.
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- Date Issued: 2014
Detached harmonies : a study in/on developing social processes of environmental education in eastern southern Africa
- Authors: O'Donoghue, Rob B
- Date: 1997
- Subjects: Environmental education -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:1939 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007726
- Description: Long-term social processes are explored to examine the shaping of environmental education in eastern southern Africa. The study opens with early Nguni social figurations when 'to conserve was to hunt.' It then examines colonial conservation on the frontiers of imperial expansion and developing struggles for and against wildlife preservation. These processes shaped an inversion of earlier harmonies as declining wildlife was protected in island sanctuaries of natural wilderness and 'to conserve was not to hunt.' Inside protected areas, conservation management struggles shaped new harmonies of interdependence in nature, enabling better steering choices in developing conservation science institutions. Here more reality congruent knowledge also revealed escalating risk which was linked to a lack of awareness amongst communities of 'others' outside. Within continuing conservation struggles, education in, about and for the environment emerged as new institutional processes of social control. The study examines wilderness experience, interpretation, extension, conservancies and the development of an environmental education field centre, a teacher education programme and a school curriculum. Naming and clarifying the emergent education game for reshaping the awareness and behaviour of others is examined within a developing figuration of environmental education specialists. Particular attention is given to academic and statutory processes shaping environmental education as a field of objective principles and rational processes within modernist continuities and discontinuities into the 1990's. An environmental education field centre, an earth-love curriculum and research on reserve neighbour interaction are examined as political sociologies developing within a declining power gradient and wide ranging socio-political change. Into the present, a final window on a local case of water pollution examines shifting relational dynamics revealing how environment and development education models of process may have little resonance amidst long-term socio-historical struggles and shifting controls over surroundings, others and self. A concluding review suggests that grounded critical processes engaging somewhat blind control over surroundings may yet reshape self-control and social control amongst others. The trajectories of these clarifying struggles must remain open-ended as sedimented myth and memory is reshaped within ongoing processes of escalating risk and global intermeshing.
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- Date Issued: 1997