Beyond Western and Indigenous Perspectives on Sustainability: Politicizing Sustainability With the Zapatista Rebellious Education

Abstract

This article discusses the contributions of different worldviews to the debates on what a transformative sustainability education could be. It focuses on mainstream and alternative strands of thought present in the West, as well as Indigenous worldviews, taking the Zapatistas as an example. The Zapatista social movement of Mexico fights for the autonomy of Mayan communities and the preservation of their culture, social organization and relationship to nature, all of which centers on traditional Mayan cosmovision. To secure the survival of the culture and of the movement itself, these ecological values are included in the education system. The Zapatistas remind us that it is possible to rethink the world and the ideologies underlying the discourses on sustainability and suggest that taking a stand and organize politically should be at the center of an education for sustainability that aims at being transformative.

A many‐splendored thing? Transformative learning for social justice

“…Understanding how inequalities are structured and differentiated across a unified world system and also how justice is fought for in context specific ways seems vital to me for TLSJ not least because by doing so we can compare, and usefully relativize, the way we understand social justice (for instance see Wacquant (2022) for a sharp critique of accounts of race and racism which do not acknowledge the complex ways this occurs across states and regions through history). Articles that are centered outside the global north and are rooted in longstanding efforts to realize social justice ideals, are heretofore rare and thus of keen interest (Maison, 2023).…”

“…The hope for an epochal perspective transformation also serves as a type of background premise, sometimes explicit and sometimes implicit, in presenting empirical material on a range of subjects, such as the lived experience of environmental activists (Kovan & Dirkx, 2003) and personal change (Williams, 2013) and the impact of courses on sustainability and environmental education (for example, Gal & Gan, 2020). Within this, there is also a line of research on environmental social movements and learning (Kluttz, & Walter, 2018; Maison, 2023). This thematic area is orientated to using TLT (for example, Moyer & Sinclair, 2020) but also combines ESC/TLT, including a notably careful reflection on how these ideas might be reconfigured from an ecological perspective (Lange, 2012).…”

“…This core proposition, which pitches itself against the deep logic of modernity and the ideologies of economic growth and technophilia which are so central in contemporary capitalism, has meant that ecological TLSJ is often the most visionary and anti‐systemic thematic area of TLSJ. This “cosmological” orientation has led researchers to reflect on questions of ontology and epistemology in ambitious ways and to consider how indigenous knowledge might be drawn upon to move toward new forms of ecological consciousness (Lange, 2018; Maison, 2023). The hope for an epochal perspective transformation also serves as a type of background premise, sometimes explicit and sometimes implicit, in presenting empirical material on a range of subjects, such as the lived experience of environmental activists (Kovan & Dirkx, 2003) and personal change (Williams, 2013) and the impact of courses on sustainability and environmental education (for example, Gal & Gan, 2020).…”

“…Where perspective transformation is discussed in relation to the wider modalities and strategies of social change, significantly this is often linked to community‐based projects (for example, Bilon, 2021; Clover, 2006; Kastner & Motschilnig, 2022; Mayo, 2003) and/or research connected to popular education and social movements (for example, Ebert et al., 2003; Gouin, 2009; Holst, 2020; Kluttz & Walter, 2018; Maison, 2023). This point to the significance of space and settings in thinking about TLSJ; learning in movements and communities is not usually highly institutionalized and are spaces where the link between social and educational, personal, and larger scale changes are organically linked (Zibechi, 2012).…”

Radical popular education today

“…Nevertheless, it is striking how much of this activity, some in projects over forty years, remain largely 'under the radar' in the European adult education research landscape. It is worth reflecting on why some of the projects documented here or why large-scale political-educational struggles in South America are not more visible despite a substantive body of research on them (Kane, 2001;Maison, 2023;Souza, 2007;Tarlau, 2013;Zibechi, 2012). We are inclined to see this as, amongst other factor, as evidence of fragmentation between progressive movements (Fraser, 2022).…”