Papers by Astrid von Kotze
Forging Solidarity, 2017
In 1980, the Junction Avenue Theatre Company in South Africa made and performed a play called Sec... more In 1980, the Junction Avenue Theatre Company in South Africa made and performed a play called Security as an act of support for a trade union whose workers had gone on strike. Security was performed in outdoor places where people assembled, in churches and community halls. The play raised some money for the strike fund; more importantly, it raised widespread awareness of the workers’ dispute and struggle and the rising problem of unemployment.
European Journal for Research on the Education and Learning of Adults
The climate catastrophe is a clarion call to humanity to change how we live. How do radical popul... more The climate catastrophe is a clarion call to humanity to change how we live. How do radical popular educators respond to this call? We ‘join the dots’ using climate justice, ecofeminism and our own insights from our engaged activist scholarship as theoretical positions to explore this question. Dominant Western worldviews which separate humans from other life forms contribute to ecological degradation. For climate justice, this hard-wired worldview needs to be disrupted. Drawing on multiple examples from Africa, we conclude that ways to do this require the foregrounding of cognitive justice which includes recognising the validity of multiple knowledges, learning from others and supporting communities’ in their struggles for reparation, reclamation and conservation of their land. These actions can be amplified in engagements which disrupt the unsustainable behaviour and policies of the wealthy. We argue that radical popular education in these times is climate just and ecofeminist.
Springer international handbooks of education, 2022
Learning and Education for a better World: the role of social movements. , 2012
True genesis is not at the beginning but at the end, and it starts to begin only when society and... more True genesis is not at the beginning but at the end, and it starts to begin only when society and existence become radical, i.e. grasp their roots. But the root of history is the working, creating human being who reshapes and overhauls the given facts. Once he (sic) has grasped himself and established what is his, without expropriation and alienation, in real democracy, there arises in the world something which shines into the childhood of all and in which no one has yet been: homeland.' (Bloch, 1986, p.1376) (j)Just where, within the current neo-liberal conjuncture and in a world dominated by global capital, American imperialism and quasi-religious fundamentalism, can the progressive activist, including the scholar-activist, find the best entry-points for radical intervention? (Saul, 2006, p.111)
This text begins with the assertion that we need to listen to nature and recognise the interconne... more This text begins with the assertion that we need to listen to nature and recognise the interconnectedness of all beings and living. I outline three principles central to a Freirean approach in popular education: political purpose and bias of the educator; dialogue as an epistemological and ontological process; and the 'vocation' of humanization. Using an eco-feminist lens, I then suggest that ecological solidarity: being part of, rather than apart-from, nature, must be a crucial part of any education going forward. This leads me to take the notion of emancipation away from individual, personal freedom towards a practical embracing of interdependence and interrelatedness as inscribed in the original meaning of 'ubuntu'.
There is an African proverb that says ‘a smooth sea doesn’t make a skilled sailor’. We are curren... more There is an African proverb that says ‘a smooth sea doesn’t make a skilled sailor’. We are currently on a very rough sea and it feels like we are in a rubber dinghy that bobs up and down – not unlike those small blow-up boats that refugees use, sustained by a hope for survival and arriving in a better world. The pandemic of Covid-19 has rocked the world – and while we created the conditions for its thriving, we were blind to the way we ravaged the earth paving the way for environmental, economic and human emergencies and a climate crisis from which we may not recover. There were many warning signs which we ignored, and as Mike Davis says, ‘the long-anticipated monster is finally at the door’, and global capitalism totally impotent in the face of this biological crisis.
European Journal for Research on the Education and Learning of Adults, 2010
In Southern Africa, theories of adult education have remained modelled on imported paradigms. The... more In Southern Africa, theories of adult education have remained modelled on imported paradigms. The urgency of particularly the first of the Millennium Development Goals, 'to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger' generally translates into policy and provision of skills training based on purely economistic considerations. In practice, lifelong education and learning occurs most commonly as part of other social practices and in the guise of community development. This article outlines the livelihood approach as a conceptual and methodological tool for a locally grounded understanding of what constitutes 'work' particularly in the context of poverty and high-risk environments. It argues that the principles of interconnectedness, relationality and agency are central to understanding livelihood practices and that participatory processes of data collection, dialogue and analysis should inform education and training policy. Programmes and curricula that fit in with the liveli...
Studies in Continuing Education, 2002
EJ660417 - Producing Knowledge for Living.
Social pedagogy' is not a familiar term in South Africa. Instead, everything to do with educa... more Social pedagogy' is not a familiar term in South Africa. Instead, everything to do with educa - tion outside or beyond schooling is subsumed under 'adult education'. Community education or alterna - tives are generally known as 'radical' or 'popular' education' concerned with social, economic and political transformation. Based on the pedagogy of Paulo Freire and participatory development paradigms these are rooted in the mass democratic struggles against apartheid. This paper is based on extensive research by the authors as participant observers and activists, conducted over many years into university-based adult education on the one hand, and praxis outside academic institutions, on the other. The authors have a his - tory of engagement in worker education, and key elements of education in the non-racial trade union move - ment as one of the most important organised forces of internal political resistance are suggested as informing curricula of univ...
Lifelong learning, the arts and community cultural engagement in the contemporary university, 2016
The Southern African Journal of Environmental Education, 2020
Drawing on the working lives of popular educators who are striving for socioeconomic and socio-ec... more Drawing on the working lives of popular educators who are striving for socioeconomic and socio-ecological justice, we demonstrate how popular education is a form of care work which is feminised, often undervalued and unrecognised as highly skilled work. It is relational work that aims to forge solidarity with communities and the environment. Given the state of the planet, the radical transformations that are needed, and the future projection of ‘work’ as including the care economy in large measure, we argue that popular education is a generative site for further exploration of research into work and learning. However, to move popular education as work from the margins means to rethink the current economic system of value. Addressing the contradiction that undervalues work for life/living, popular education engages transformative action motivated by a deep sense of solidarity and a focus on imagining alternatives as an act of hope.Keywords: work and learning, popular education, care...
South African Labour Bulletin, 1983
The Community Adult Education Training Program (CAETP) in the Durban region in South Africa is a ... more The Community Adult Education Training Program (CAETP) in the Durban region in South Africa is a nonformal adult education program that was initiated by the Centre for Adult Education at Natal University in recognition of the need to train grassroots educators for the region. Ten women and 10 men are receiving training through the CAETP. Most CAETP participants are in the program.to learn to plan, design, and facilitate education. The CAETP project is intended to lay the foundations for a specialized training program to develop community education in areas such as literacy, health, labor, culture, gender politics, and environmental issues. Initially, the learning process and methods of facilitating learning are emphasized. The initial training is then reinforced by ensuing programs that apply the methodological principles to specific subjects (such as health education). CAETP courses are based on participants' identified needs and generally cover the following: the specific dyna...
Ecofeminism offers a framework that brings together patriarchy, capitalism, and the degradation o... more Ecofeminism offers a framework that brings together patriarchy, capitalism, and the degradation of the environment, and helps to make sense of and address a world in desperate need of radical transformation. The Covid-19 pandemic has magnified existing fault lines of inequality, poverty, gender-based violence, and turbulence in the biosphere. This paper uses an ecofeminist lens to critically investigate the case of a woman’s health course that employs a popular education approach. As imbedded activist researchers, we question how the curriculum should change so that the knowledge generated really becomes useful for transformative action. Thus, the paper brings together popular education theory and ecofeminism. After an overview of ecofeminist principles, we introduce a case study to apply these principles. We conclude that elements which relate to the participants’ lives in immediate ways, like food security and water, are entry points for challenging the perception of Nature as a “...
Journal of Education, 2005
Adult Education and Social Responsibility (36, pp. 151- …, 1998
Community Development Journal, 2007
A barely hidden smile playing around his lips, eyebrows dancing, he went along the line of studen... more A barely hidden smile playing around his lips, eyebrows dancing, he went along the line of students nudging them gently and indulgently suggesting complicity, until they admitted, yes, they did actually enjoy moments of exercising power, even power over others. The trouble was so ...
Citizenship as Politics
... week participant performers and about 50 people walked from Nichol Square to Berea Park, le... more ... week participant performers and about 50 people walked from Nichol Square to Berea Park, lead by a marching band, armed with vuvuzelas (plastic trumpets ... hands for a pamphlet that had the words 'free' written on it in large letters but that turned out to be no more than an ...
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Papers by Astrid von Kotze