Futures of Education UNESCO 7, place de Fontenoy 75352 Paris France [email protected] en.unesco.org/futuresofeducation @UNESCO Background paper for the Futures of Education initiative Reimagining education: student movements and the possibility of a Critical Pedagogy and Feminist Praxis by Tania Saeed Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), Pakistan This paper was commissioned by UNESCO as background information to assist in drafting the Futures of Education report to be published in 2021. It has not been edited by UNESCO. The views and opinions expressed in this paper are those of the author(s) and should not be attributed to UNESCO. This paper can be cited with the following reference: Saeed, T. 2020. Reimagining education: student movements and the possibility of a Critical Pedagogy and Feminist Praxis. Paper commissioned for the UNESCO Futures of Education report. © UNESCO 2020 This work is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 IGO licence (CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/igo)2 Abstract The Anthropocene Epoch has witnessed the rise of right wing populist leaders and movements that have reinforced the borders of the nation state, promoting an insular worldview driven by an ideology of capitalist expansion at the expense of civic, human, non-human, environmental and ecological rights. At the same time, social movements and campaigns in countries across the Global North and South are challenging the status quo, holding local and global leaders accountable. These social movements, particularly those led by students are central to any discussion on the Futures of Education. This paper focuses on student-led movements, in particular the School Strikes for Climate (SS4C), Fridays For Future (FFF), Decolonizing the Curriculum, and Rhodes Must Fall that have gained transnational appeal. These movements have been selected as they take on the dual challenge of a climate and environmental crisis that is intrinsically linked to a local and global hierarchical structure informed by the historical experience of colonialism and Imperialism. These movements provide insights into the importance of reimagining education as decentering the human in relation to the land and the community, dismantling the rigid borders between formal, community and inter-generational learning thereby redefining what is considered legitimate knowledge, and engaging in a pedagogy of land through an intersectional feminist praxis that blurs the disciplinary distinctions between the Humanities, the Natural Sciences, and the Social Sciences. The paper therefore reimagines the Futures of Education through a Critical Pedagogy and Feminist Praxis (CPFP) where citizenship moves beyond the social contract with a nation state, inculcating civic values towards the land, and its human and non-human inhabitants. Introduction In reimagining the Futures of Education in a context of growing global and local inequalities, it is crucial to expand the borders of our ‘situated imagination’ that is defined through the particularities of our experiences and surroundings (Yuval-Davis, 2013). Such expansion requires an uncomfortable confrontation with a troubling past, and a recognition of the changing nature of the human and non-human world and our role in its destruction or (re)construction. This reimagining is crucial at a time when the Anthropocene epoch is marred by the rise of right-wing populism in countries across the Global North and South dictated by a market driven ideology of capitalist expansion at the expense of planetary sustainability. Technological advancement and online connectivity that ought to have created more possibility of ‘border crossing’ (Giroux, 2005) has instead resulted in greater surveillance and control, with identities digitized for bureaucratic management in the name of security (Saunders, 2016). The existence of such insular worldviews can be found in different parts of the world: in the UK’s decision to Brexit - leave the European Union at a time where greater cooperation and coordination is needed to take on the challenges of an environmental and climate emergency, and a refugee crisis; in the US’ decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement that brought nations together to ensure a ‘global response’ to the climate emergency (Climate Action Tracker, 2020a); or in the increasing ‘deforestation’ of the Amazon in Brazil which went up by more than 80% in 2019 with environmental activists, indigenous leaders and ‘forest defenders’ being killed by mafias (HRW, 2020; Angelo, 2020; Climate Action Tracker, 2020b). These are just a few examples of how physical and ideological borders of the nation-state are being reinforced to promote self-interest at the expense of civic, environmental, ecological and human rights.3 Simultaneously, in the face of political self-interest that has wreaked human and ecological devastation, a reimagining of the future is already taking place through student led campaigns and movements, with young people taking charge of their own futures. Such counter narratives build on existing forms of resistance that have ranged from indigenous movements led by indigenous leaders who have worked locally and globally to influence policy through the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), the Indigenous Peoples Kyoto Declaration, the Manukan Declaration of the Indigenous Women’s Biodiversity Network, among others (Whyte, 2016), to the Global Justice Movement, anti-war protests, the Black Lives Matter movement, the MeToo movement, the anti-austerity protests in Europe and the US – among countless others that have erupted at different points around the world. What specifically stands out with more recent movements such as School Strikes for Climate (SS4C), or Fridays For Future (FFF) is that they are led by children, taking on the responsibility for their futures in a context of adult failure. University students are challenging the basic core of education that relies on western and Eurocentric cannons through movements for Decolonizing the Curriculum and Rhodes Must Fall that started in South Africa and gained transnational support. In the first meeting of the International Commission on the Futures of Education in January 2020, a central question was posed: ‘what do we want to become’ (UNESCO, 2020). The answer to this question is also right before us in the form of these counter narratives. Any discussion on the Futures of Education is incomplete without locating student voices and experiences as central to that discussion especially when students have been politically active - organizing, agitating, speaking, writing – reimagining their own future. Campaigns such as SS4C, FFF, Rhodes Must Fall and Decolonizing the Curriculum are examples where environmental, ecological, civic and human rights are central to this reimagining. The role of education in such a context is crucial for equipping students ‘with the knowledge, capacities, and opportunities to be noisy, irreverent and vibrant’ (Giroux, 1992:8). This paper through an exploration of secondary literature draws on these student led movements in order to reimagine an educational framework defined by a Critical Pedagogy and Feminist Praxis (CPFP). These movements are specifically selected for being led by school and university students who have gained transnational support, and are taking on the biggest challenges of the Anthropocene Epoch. The paper begins by locating SS4C, FFF, Rhodes Must Fall and Decolonizing the Curriculum within the wider literature on social movements and student activism, providing an overview of these movements and their implications for education and civic participation. This is followed by an exploration of CPFP that embodies an interdisciplinary approach to education and learning, where civic responsibility moves beyond the traditional social contract with the nation state, to a deeper connection with humans and non-humans, developing a ‘sensibility’ (Tuana, 2019) towards communities that have been ‘silenced’ or marginalized on the basis of race, class, caste, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, religion or any form of human and non-human othering. It therefore creates the possibility of expanding physical and ideological boundaries through a ‘pedagogy of difference’ where students can ‘cross over into diverse cultural zones’ while ‘rethinking’ ‘relations’ of domination and subordination (Giroux, 1992:8). It also emphasizes an inter-generational community based model of learning where educational institutions are connected with the wider community, drawing on local or indigenous forms of knowledge and learning, where civic participation is closely linked to the dynamics of the local community. Social movements for change In his work on social movements, Christopher A. Rootes argued that ‘student movements are creatures of the societies in which they occur and as such they evince, in variable measure all the excellences and deformities of4 their circumstances’ (Rootes, 1980: 473). Social movements, particularly progressive movements led by students and youth activists are central to the ‘process of democratization’ (Giroux 2018). Educational institutions can be instrumental in developing civic, human, ecological and environmental values among the younger generation, equipping them with the tools necessary for meaningful activism. Yet, neoliberal educational institutions far from challenging the inequalities and injustices in the world have adopted a profit oriented, apolitical approach to education and knowledge production (Giroux, 2018; 2005). Such institutions are unsustainable in a world with shrinking resources, increasing migration and displacement as humans and non-human are caught up in conflict, and an ecological emergency. These student movements have not randomly emerged. Porta and Mattoni in their edited volume on social movements demonstrate the ‘transnational dimension’ of contemporary movements in relation to historical connections, and ideologies that have travelled across geographical boundaries. They illustrate how contemporary protests and movements since 2008 are located in a context of ‘political’ and ‘economic’ crisis experienced at different points across the world, with resistance taking different forms in response to local politics – they characterize these protests as ‘movements of the crisis’ (Porta and Mattoni, 2014:2).1 Yet these ‘movements of the crisis’ can also create the possibility of hope as illustrated by Hytten (2018) drawing on John Dewey’s idea of democracy as a ‘way of life’: Through working with others on issues that they are passionate about, citizens ideally develop the habits of experimentalism and pluralism, as well as the habit of hope, sustained by evidence that other worlds are possible. (Hytten, 2018: 11) Local movements and protests led by students have been challenging particular forms of injustices in local contexts where hierarchies of caste, class, ethnicity, gender, sexualities or race need to be dismantled. These protests are visible across South Asia from the student movement against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act 2019 in India, or the Students Solidarity March in Pakistan (see Martelli and Garalytė, 2019; Jan, 2019); Hong Kong’s Anti-Extradition Bill movement (see Ku, 2020), or student protests against the neoliberal education system in France and the UK. Movements such as SS4C, FFF, Rhodes Must Fall, and Decolonizing the Curriculum have cultivated a global and transnational support. This Deweyan ‘habit of hope’ that can reimagine a more just future is being developed not only within the confines of a nation-state but given the scale of the crisis, has transnational appeal, across borders as students challenge the status quo together. The struggle for environmental and ecological rights and justice: School Strikes for Climate (SS4C), and Fridays for Future (FFF) The scale of climate change and environmental disaster can be gauged from the fact that ‘between 2030 and 2050 climate change is projected to cause an additional 250,000 deaths per year’ globally (UN, 2020b:85), along with irreversible damage to the non-human world. Already, between 2008 and 2018 climate change is estimated to have caused ‘an average of 24.1 million people per year’ to be forced out of their homes ‘as a result of weather events and natural disasters’ (ibid: 83; See UN, 2020a). The Anthropocene is dominated by human activity that is increasingly compromising the future of the planet, and the survival of human and non-human species, with governments prioritizing short term profit at the expense of environmental sustainability. It is in this context of an environmental and climate emergency that we witnessed the mobilization of school children whose future is under jeopardy. The SS4C and FFF was started by environmental activist and school student Greta Thunberg who began protesting against the Swedish government’s failure to meet the targets set in the Paris Agreement (FFF, 2020; United Nations Climate Change, 2020). Inspired by this lone figure protesting against a government indifferent to her future, and the future of so many children, as images of her protest5 spread online through social media, school students, parents, activists and allies all over the world joined the movement organizing ‘the most comprehensive coordinated global strike ever on 15 March 2019’ with ‘1.6 million people in 2000 locations worldwide’ protesting for action to mitigate the climate and environmental emergency (Holmberg and Alvinius, 2019: 79). Students have started organizing protests every Friday until their demands are met. While these demands vary across countries, dependent on the particular policies of national governments, they have largely included holding governments accountable to the Paris Agreement, a halt on fossil fuel production, and making ‘ecocide an international crime’. There is also an increasing recognition that ‘climate and environmental justice can not be achieved’ without tackling ‘social and racial injustices and oppression’ (Neubauer et al., 2020). Campaigns for environmental and climate protection are not new, having been led by indigenous communities and environmentalists in different parts of the world. However, this movement is unique in its mobilization of school students across the world in an age of digital communication and social media. The place of children as leaders of this movement is particularly important. Children have often been portrayed as ‘vulnerable and victims…educatable (subjects possible to transform and empower) and as crucial agents for change (for their future – not crucial for those living today, though)’ by national and international policymakers (Holmberg and Alvinius, 2019: 82). The focus has been on their ‘potential,’ where their involvement in youth parliaments are meant to prepare them for future roles. Yet, this movement illustrates the existing power of children and their ability to mobilize, using technology to organize and campaign. The climate movement has resulted in children becoming active participants to ensure that their concerns and their vision about their own future is not only heard but implemented, especially in a context where time is of the essence. As a result of their political activism, students have been invited to the UN’s ‘Youth Climate Action Summit’ in September 2019 where ‘youth climate champions’ from 140 countries shared ‘their solutions on the global stage’ (see UN, 2020c), at Davos to discuss their concerns and vision with world leaders, at the ‘Voices of Youth’ created by UNICEF (2019), as ‘a dedicated platform for young advocates to offer inspiring and original insights on issues that matter to them’ among other local and global forums. The movement also provides an important form of learning for students who are walking out of schools and classrooms, collectively holding local and global leaders accountable. It reinforces a ‘habit of hope’ (Hytten, 2019) as children take the lead. Furthermore, in line with Henry Giroux’ philosophy, McKnight (2020:53) argues that ‘the learning spaces of protests and marches facilitate an opening up to new ideas, a reduction of hierarchy in learning, and the creation of community.’ Analyzing the speeches and interviews of participants from SS4C and FFF, she notes how young activists are making links between issues of ‘capitalism and colonialism’ in their fight for environmental justice (ibid). They are beginning to recognize hierarchical disparities that exist in decision making, where the most vulnerable to the climate and environmental emergency are often the least influential in the local and global power hierarchy. The global hierarchy has historical roots in colonialism and Imperialism, a history that needs to be confronted in education systems in the Global North and South, a confrontation that is being led by young students who aim to decolonize the curriculum. Civic and racial justice: a reckoning with history Local and global hierarchies of knowledge, of what is considered worthy of knowing and learning is embedded within the education system. This legitimate knowledge is largely Euro, Western and white centric, where the educational traditions of indigenous communities, of various racial, ethnic, religious or cultural groups are often undermined or silenced not only within the Global North, but also through educational hierarchies in a postcolonial South. The struggle to reclaim ones educational heritage against such hierarchies of knowledge production and legitimation are not new, with anti-colonial and anti-racist movements taking on these challenges (see Said, 2001; Peters, 2018; 2015; Thiong’o, 1994; Ellis, 2009; Shahjahan, 2011). Decolonizing the6 Curriculum and Rhodes Must Fall are a legacy of these struggles led by university students from South Africa to the UK. These began as student campaigns in 2015 by students in South Africa at the University of Cape Town with the aim to challenge ‘the ideological apparatus of white supremacy and colonialism’ triggered by the ‘particular conditions’ and realities of their specific contexts (Pimblott, 2020: 211). For instance, Rhodes Must Fall began with the demand for ‘free education’ under the slogan ‘Fees must Fall’ which grew to challenge the reality of a post-apartheid South Africa, calling for the removal of the statue of colonialist Cecil Rhodes who laid the groundwork for apartheid, and a demand to decolonize the curriculum (Meda, 2020: 88; Peters, 2018: 265; Miller and Pointer, 2019). The movement gained transnational appeal, being taken up by students at the University of Oxford, in the UK ‘where Rhodes was a benefactor.’ The students involved in this movement were not only inspired by students in South Africa, but also by the ‘campaign against caste prejudice’ in Indian universities (Bhambra et al., 2018: 1), the antiracist struggles by students in the US,2 building on ‘earlier movements and protests’ led by ‘the Black and Asian Studies Association concerning the representation of Black history within the UK National Curriculum … among others’ (ibid). In such a context decolonization has taken on different meaning. It has ranged from ‘rediscovering and recovering’ knowledge, ‘reconstructing and deconstructing’ knowledge, or changing the entire structure of the higher education system (Meda, 2020: 89-90). However, one underlying aspect of this campaign is to engage in an act of ‘reflexivity’ that questions the process by which certain types of knowledge are legitimized: It requires looking both inwards and outwards, accepting that there is more than one way of speaking about, thinking about, and researching the complex social and political phenomena bound up within our disciplines. (Saini and Begum 2020: 219) For instance, at the University of Oxford, Rhodes Must Fall aims to challenge the ‘plague of colonial iconography,’ reform a ‘Euro-centric curriculum’ and address the ‘underrepresentation and lack of welfare provisions for black and minority ethnic (BME) amongst Oxford’s academic staff and students (Bold in original)’ (Peters, 2018: 265-266). Henriques and Abushouk (2018) highlight how the Rhodes Must Fall movement in Oxford permitted a ‘transnational discussion around structural transformation which would force the university, an institution which is highly resistant to change, to be self-reflective and consider learning from both its British and international students’ (2018: 308). The movement was reignited in 2020 spreading to other universities, inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement in the US (McKie 2020). The danger of such movements becoming tokenistic without addressing deeper structures of knowledge production that reinforce hierarchies has been challenged through campaigns such as ‘Why is My Curriculum White’ spearheaded by the National Union of Students (NUS) in the UK. Sian has argued that these ‘campaigns illustrate the significance of carving out epistemological spaces for educators and students to engage with ‘other’ knowledges and situate global issues in nuanced frameworks’ (Sian, 2017: 13). These campaigns and movements are important in highlighting how civic participation has evolved in a context of migration, and pluralism as communities move across geographical boundaries, redefining and reimagining national identities and ideals of citizenship. They are pushing to reimagine an education system that confronts the history of colonialism, and the hierarchies that continue to exist, where indigenous, racial, ethnic, or cultural forms of knowledge and identity continue to be undermined (See Saini and Begum, 2020).3 A reimagining of education begins with dismantling such hierarchies that privileges one form of knowledge, instead of focusing on the diversity of the human and non-human experience. It further requires rethinking the disconnect between ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ ways of learning, where communities beyond school and university7 structures are considered equally legitimate in the learning experience. In short, a reimagining through a Critical Pedagogy and Feminist Praxis is central for the Futures of Education. Critical Pedagogy and Feminist Praxis (CPFP) – reimagining the Futures of Education The SS4C, FFF, Rhodes Must Fall and Decolonizing the Curriculum led by students from schools and universities illustrate the importance of developing an educational ecosystem that cuts across disciplinary or physical borders. The climate crisis is exacerbated by an unequal world system that is embedded in a historical context of colonialism and Imperialism, which is yet to be confronted, where taken-for-granted assumptions about knowledge and learning legitimize a Eurocentric worldview while cultural, ethnic, indigenous or religious diversity is reduced to a subject or a class on world cultures, world religions or multiculturalism within the formal education system. In reimagining this system this paper proposes a framework that is embedded in local experiences and knowledge which cuts across the Humanities, the Natural and Social Sciences yet engages with different world views and ideologies, while enabling student curiosity towards science and technology, and inculcating civic values towards human and non-human equality. This reimagining begins by expanding the ‘situated knowledge’ (Yuval-Davis et al., 2017) of local existence through a critical pedagogy: central to any viable notion of what makes pedagogy critical is, in part, the recognition that it is a moral and political practice that is always implicated in power relations because it narrates particular versions and visions of agency, civic life, community, the future, and how we might construct representations of ourselves, others, and our physical and social environment. (Giroux, 2018: 84-85). This pedagogy is located both inside and outside the classroom where educators create conditions that ‘rearticulate justice and equality’ (Giroux, 2005). It is also through such critical pedagogy that the student as the ‘border crosser’ is envisioned. This critical pedagogy is linked to a particular feminist praxis that adopts an intersectional approach to educational practice. The intersectional approach reveals how power is constituted differently within education systems and local contexts. It not only exposes ‘multilayered structures of power and domination by adopting a grounded praxis approach’ but ‘also engage the conditions that shape and influence the interpretive lenses through which knowledge is produced and disseminated’ (Cho, Crenshaw and McCall, 2013: 804). Such an intersectional approach therefore creates an awareness and realization of where power is located, and how it is experienced by different groups, human and non-human. In order to develop a ‘sensibility’ towards such dynamics of power, an ‘ecologically informed intersectional genealogy’ is also central (Tuana, 2019). Such ‘genealogical sensibilities’ permit the possibility of understanding local histories and existing realities around structures of oppression, where ‘racism and environmental exploitation’ often ‘coalesce’ in different ways (ibid: 12). As Tuana (2019) argues these ‘genealogical sensibilities’ are a first step towards confronting taken-for-granted values and beliefs within a particular community, where the ‘goal of genealogical sensibilities is to become attuned to the often silent workings of power’ and how it is8 deployed in different forms ‘in order to identify histories of oppressive practices, particularly to silenced or suppressed lineages that often continue to animate oppression’ (2019: 4). Such a praxis permits the possibility of introspection and interrogation through an education that questions the fundamentals of legitimatized knowledge in different contexts, an introspection already taking place through student movements that have been highlighted in this paper. A critical pedagogy exposes students to a diverse curriculum from the ‘standpoint’ of other communities necessitating a ‘pedagogy of difference’ where education becomes a ‘transformative’ learning experience (Giroux, 2005). Both the expansion of borders, and the crossing of borders is possible as education creates the conditions for human and non-human connections. ‘Reimagining’ the human and non-human connection In rethinking and re-situating our relationship with the human and non-human world, there is an urgent decentering of the individual in relation to the community. Central to this decentering is our understanding of communities and collectivities through a feminist praxis, as Sara Ahmed argues: [c]ollectivities are formed through the very work that we need to do in order to get closer to others, without simply repeating the appropriation of ‘them’ as labour or as a sign of difference. Collectivity then is intimately tied to the secrecy and intimacy of the encounter: it is not about proximity or distance, but a getting closer which accepts the existence of distance and puts it to work. (Ahmed, 2002: 570) In acknowledging that distance, and the possibility of multiple realities the future(s) of education can move beyond a prescriptive ideal of education. Styres et al. (2013) in their work on ‘pedagogy of land’ provide an important example of such connections. Pedagogy of land is more than a ‘pedagogy of place’ as it captures not only the ‘materiality of land’ but also ‘the spiritual, emotional and intellectual aspects of Land’ where ‘Land’ is ‘sentient’ with a ‘history … a living thing’ (Styres et al., 2013:37-38). They propose a ‘de-colonizing and indigenizing’ of learning that is connected with the histories and realities of the land in relation to communities, ‘a holistic perspective taking into account spiritual, emotive, cognitive, and physical elements of human interaction’ that are ‘ever-changing.’ (39-40). The need to reorient education where a pedagogy of land is central to human inquiry, is also echoed in the work of Bell and Russell (2002) who highlight the limitations of existing critical pedagogical inquiry in which ‘nonhuman’ knowledge is ‘peripheral to the core curriculum’ (2002: 192). Drawing on Donna Haraway, they examine how intellectual engagement with the non-human world centers the human experience, where ecological and environmental encounters are defined by a human vocabulary that legitimizes the power and control of humans over non-human ‘things’ (ibid: 194-95). Central to this education is this reconnection with the diversity of the Land, and its various human and non-human inhabitants. It is this diversity that also informs civic responsibility which is linked to the Land and its various inhabitants. The ideological borders of citizenship are further expanded, where a connection within and beyond nation states is developed. Expanding and crossing borders4 In reimagining education the disciplinary boundaries that have ghettoized knowledge and learning need to be dismantled. Learning through an interdisciplinary curriculum, through community led initiatives, and progressive campaigns and movements that continue to evolve in ensuring human and non-human rights creates the possibility of crossing intellectual and physical borders, creating empathy and strengthening civic and collective action.9 In conceptualizing such a ‘border crosser’ (Giroux, 2005) the pedagogy of land is central. Styres et al. (2013) suggest focusing on ‘land-centred’ narratives and ‘story telling’ with teachers helping students to ‘interact with Land in their own teaching’ (2013: 58). This further creates the possibility of expanding disciplinary boundaries, where land as a ‘living thing’ becomes central to interdisciplinary inquiry.5 Developing such as a pedagogy of land is all the more important at a time where mass migration, and displacement continues. The Humanities, the Natural and Social Sciences in such a context provide the possibility of engaging with narratives of migration in relation to the Land, focusing on people who have moved, or those who moved across generations, or were natives to the ‘land’, locating their relationship not only with each other but also with the Land and the ecosystem within and beyond national boundaries (Whyte, 2018; 2016; Styres et al., 2013; Miller and Pointer 2019). The diversity of the human and non-human experience, that is realized through the education system also expands the discourse on rights, where every human and non-human entity has a right to belong to the Land, and exist in harmony, with civic responsibility towards all being and entities that inhabit the land. Inter-generational communities of learning Formal education systems have been following a hierarchical model of education delivery, often undermining local, indigenous knowledge and learning, where a disconnect exists between the formal school and the larger community. The problem with such a disconnect is further exacerbated when confronted by a global crisis such as the Covid-19 pandemic, which by April 2020 had affected 94% of ‘learners worldwide’ that included ‘1.58 billion children and youth, from pre-primary to higher education, in 200 countries’ as educational institutions closed down (UN, 2020d:5). If the goal of education is to promote a form of critical pedagogy that develops democratic values of progressive engagement in the human and non-human world, then such a disconnect undermines the entire project of change. It cannot meet the demands of SS4C, FFF, Decolonizing the Curriculum or Rhodes Must Fall, or the countless protests by students against austerity, race, caste, class and citizenship violations in different parts of the world. An inter-generational community based model of learning prioritizes the local community as a pedagogical space of learning (see Iyengar and Shin, 2020; Quartz and Saunders, 2020). The critical pedagogy and feminist praxis approach takes this further drawing on indigenous methods of learning, where generational memory of struggle with the Land becomes an essential part of this community engagement. An example of such an approach can be found in the developing field of Indigenous Environmental Studies and Sciences (IESS), that focuses on ‘Indigenous historical heritages, living intellectual traditions, research approaches, education practices, and political advocacy to investigate how humans can live respectfully within dynamic ecosystems’ (Whyte, 2018: 138). Such emphasis on a community-based approach drawing on ‘indigenous knowledge’ will also be instrumental in challenging the hegemony of knowledge production that legitimizes a Euro, largely white-centric epistemology (Rich, 2012). However, in reimagining education, this approach is not simply another field of inquiry, but central to the education process. The institutionalized nature of education needs to evolve to a more fluid model of community engagement. Technological innovation in such a context balances the human and non-human relationship with the land, that can be used to create greater ecological, and environmental harmony. Civic responsibility will be linked more directly to the needs of the community, and more broadly to principles of justice and equity, as promoted through a more fluid community based approach to education.10 The future awaits As the struggle for human and non-human sustainability continues, with governments reneging on their commitments to environmental and human rights, social movements, particularly those led by students will be instrumental in holding existing governments accountable, and in reorienting and reimagining the future. Such movements provide invaluable insights into reimagining the futures of education that are informed by the demands and concerns of these students. The various crises of the Anthropocene epoch can be dealt through an education that is localized in allowing deeper introspection and interrogation of structural injustices, while moving beyond the boundaries of the nation state through an affinity to the Land and its human and non-human inhabitants. This paper in expanding on a future educational framework of Critical Pedagogy and Feminist Praxis draws on existing student movements that have gained transnational appeal, that highlighted environmental, and ecological crisis, and the social and racial hierarchies that have ignored or silenced alternative forms of knowledge. The reimagining decenters the human in relation to the Land; it decolonizes a largely Euro/Western/white centric system of knowledge production by expanding and crossing disciplinary and physical boundaries, where education becomes a holistic experience across disciplines, and where learning is not just confined to a formal institution, but equally centers community and generational knowledge. Such a decentering is all the more important in a context of mass migration and displacement, where the land, the climate and environment are being ruthless exploited, where local and indigenous languages are in danger of becoming extinct, and with them a rich heritage that celebrates the human and non-human connection with the land. This decentering employs a more interdisciplinary approach to education that locates the importance of the Natural Sciences, Humanities, and Social Sciences, emphasizing an education that embraces technological and medical advancement while simultaneously centering narratives of land, that contribute to a civic responsibility in protecting those who have been silenced, within and beyond the nation-state. Notes 1 Porta and Mattoni give examples of protests from 2008 to 2014 at different points in Iceland, Ireland, the Middle East, Portugal, Spain, Greece, New York, Turkey, Bulgaria, Brazil and Bosnia. These different protests evolve in response to the specific conditions in which they emerge. 2 Examples of campus activism include campaigns such as #iTooAmHarvard to highlight the struggles and experiences of ‘racially minoritized students’ (Pimblott, 2020: 211). 3 Such reckoning is also happening in other parts of the world with the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement in the US that has inspired protests in other countries in the Global North. 4 This concept of the border crosser draws on Henry Giroux (2005) and Nira Yuval-Davis’ (2013; 2017) work. 5 Other examples include Wendy Harcourt’s work on using drawing and art to develop a process of ‘commoning’ through which a ‘shared political imaginary’ is possible in relation to ecological and economic sustainability (Harcourt 2019); the Green Leadership Schools in South Africa that focus on indigenous environmentalism (see Miller and Pointer, 2019).11 References Ahmed, S. 2002. This other and other others. 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