South epistemologies to invent post-pandemic science education

Abstract

Besides being a country with high inequality, Brazil faces an alarming sociohistorical moment in which the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is exacerbating a disastrous political situation that promotes polarization and social division. The context of this situation is described here through a critical lens, as a justification for conceiving a counter-hegemonic proposal based on different views that share the perspective of Global South epistemologies. Santos’ (in Santos (ed) Epistemologias do Sul , Coimbra, Edições Almedina, 2009) fundamental principle is that there is no global social justice without global cognitive justice, which is represented by the concept of ecology of knowledge. In a recent publication, Santos ( A cruel pedagogia do vírus , Coimbra, Edições Almedina.Santos, 2020) demonstrates that the negative effects of the pandemic on the planet and humanity were exacerbated by the planetary dimensions that capitalism has taken on. The author states that the current health crisis is connected to the ecological crisis, since both are manifestations of this model of society, which is based on the unlimited exploitation of natural resources. Building on these ideas, we envisage a science education that fights for the preservation of the planet, is critical of the capitalist model of society, and values the knowledge of the Global South.

Science class as clinic: Why histories of segregated instruction matter for health equity reforms today

“…Recent studies discuss at least ten issues around which students, teachers, and teacher educators might examine scientific and sociopolitical dimensions of the pandemic as matters of pressing global concern. These include: heightened viral exposures of delivery, healthcare, and other essential workers (Forsythe & Chan, 2021), disparate resources for sheltering at home (Rezende et al, 2021), inequitable access to medical facilities (Rodrigues & Lowan‐Trudeau, 2021), racializing narratives of irresponsible patients (Mark, 2022), systemic racism in healthcare institutions (Saddler et al, 2021), racialized medical devices like the pulse oximeter (Waight et al, 2022), racially biased healthcare management algorithms (Cheuk, 2021), disability and the rationing of lifesaving resources (Williams et al, 2022), unjust domestic and global vaccine distribution (Raveendran & Bazzul, 2021), and intensified environmental racism (Forsythe & Chan, 2021).…”

Perspective Chapter: Activism for Social Justice – Moving Beyond Counter-Hegemonic Resistance

“…It advocates for a counterhegemonic approach rooted in Global South epistemologies, particularly inspired by de Santos' concept of "ecology of knowledge" as essential for global social justice. The chapter proposes a science education framework that prioritizes environmental preservation, critiques capitalist systems, and values knowledge from the Global South [4]. Overall, educational social justice needs further studies that reveal the tensions in education and the contexts in which it develops.…”

Power, knowledge, subjectivity: Science education and questions of collective existence

“…Before the pandemic, the wicked hierarchies between the Global North and the Global South-and let's not forget the hierarchies within-the ‗North of the North vs the North' and the ‗the South vs the South of the South'(MACHADO DE OLIVEIRA, 2021). Attention to the epistemologies of the Global South has become a very important focus for science education (REZENDE et al, 2021). There were also large numbers of precarious people living outside the meagre provisions of capitalist economic and social life.…”

“…This is a point my colleague Aswathy Raveendran raises in a recent article we co-authored on public health discourses and subjectivity in India (RAVEENDRAN; BAZZUL, 2021). It is also a point that Flavia Rezende et al (2021) make concerning southern epistemologiesthose marginalized knowledges that are employed by many Indigenous people who have the potential to mend the global destruction caused by modern capitalism. There are two things about how the pandemic put modern science in relation to more traditional knowledges I'd like to quickly mention.…”

“…our spiritual nature). It is this deep reflection on science and epistemology that Rezende et al (2021) ask educators to consider. That is, the way modern Western science has historically foreclosed Indigenous and/or local knowledges that do not fit the universalizing ‗templates' of modern Western science.…”