PIMA BULLETIN NO 49
Special Issue - Climate Justice Education
November 2023
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PIMA Business
We are at a time of crisis and transformation, dramatically illustrated by ongoing, devastating wars, which contribute to catastrophes for all life - human and more-than-human. We keep all those affected in our hearts as we work for greater peace and justice.
As we have noted before, during periods of crisis and uncertainty, there is a double move – one which is authoritarian and exploitative and the second which is relational, concerned with solidarity, seeking life affirming alternatives. This bulletin, and the teach-ins which are described in detail, make important contributions towards a new ‘relational story’, one which deepens understanding of what it means to move towards relational ways of being. Contributing to the writing of a new script for the world, towards a new story, can engender hope and a sense of agency – this is what PIMA seeks to achieve.
We thank Elizabeth Lange, who led the teach-ins, and all the 18 contributors to the Bulletin for their thoughtful contributions. We hope that these can be the basis for discussions, and actions, in classrooms, around kitchen tables, in corridors or on the streets while protesting! In addition, a big thanks to Leslie Cordie for her technical expertise and support both for the teach-ins and the bulletin.
Much to our delight, the teach-ins were again co-hosted with the adult education networks of the Canadian Association for Studies in Adult Education (CASAE), MOJA Africa, SCUTREA, and Adult Learning Australia (ALA). Climate justice education embraces all aspects and regions of the world, therefore respectful collaboration is the only way to make headway.
Welcome to new members.
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It gives great pleasure to welcome six new PIMA members. In addition to short introductions, five of the new members have written articles for the bulletin. This immediately gives a richer idea of who they are and what they bring to the network.
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Ivor Baatjes is Executive Director of Canon Collins Trust in South Africa. Prior to joining the Trust, Ivor served as director of the Centre for Integrated Post-School Education and Training (CIPSET), Nelson Mandela University; co-host of the National Research Foundation SARChI Chair in Community Adult and Worker Education; board member of the National Institute for Human and Social Sciences (NIHSS); and Chair of the Education Policy Consortium (EPC). He has worked across all the subsectors of the post-school education and training sector and is a member of the current Ministerial Task Team on Community Education and Training. His research interests include the social and solidarity economy and its relationships with community-driven food, health, water, and energy systems; adult and community education; higher education; workers education; and learning in social movements.
Sharon Clancy is currently Associate Professor in educational leadership and adult education at the University of Nottingham. Her writing, teaching and research focuses on adult education, class, culture, and social justice issues and draws on her experience as a practitioner/activist in the community as well as her passion for shared stories and narrative based on lived experience. She completed her PhD in 2017, an in-depth case study of a historic short-term adult residential college. Her book on this study Sir George Trevelyan, Residential Adult Education and the New Age - 'To Open the Immortal Eye’ is published by Palgrave. She is a trustee of the Association for Research in the Voluntary and Community sector (ARVAC), and a commissioner for the Centenary Commission on Adult Education. Within this role, since 2021 she has led the international Research Circle on Fostering Community democracy, debate and Dialogue with Dr Iain Jones. She is a poet, singer, painter, and yoga teacher. Stories Matter, this volume.
Nic Dickson is an adult educator, visual artist, and participatory arts-based researcher. She recently completed her Ph.D. with the School of Education at the University of Glasgow, where she conducted an arts-based research study with young women who had lived experienced of childhood sexual abuse and homelessness. The study explored the barriers and enablers to their involvement in non-formal adult arts education, and the factors which affected sustained engagement in learning, research, and creative practice. Nic continues to work with the charity where the research took place and has developed and delivered multiple visual arts-projects with the service users and staff. Since graduating Nic has worked at the University of Glasgow as a Research Associate, and has collaborated with colleagues from Education, Sociology, Criminology, Archeology, Modern Languages and General Practice. Drawing Attention, this volume.
Buhle Francis is a scholar activist-based in South Africa, at Rhodes University, at the Environmental Learning Research Centre in One Ocean Hub Project. Buhle has a different vision for what academic research can do, both for academia and for those who are the subject of study. With women in small-scale fishing communities in the Eastern Cape, she is undertaking collaborative research at the nexus of environmental justice, gender equality, ocean livelihoods, and inclusivity in ocean-related decision-making processes. She also teaches climate change in a Master of Disaster Management Program at the Institute of Development Studies at the National University of Science and Technology in Zimbabwe. She is a recipient of 2023 Earth Scholarship which has climate emergency as the focus. Climate Justice Education, this volume.
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Timothy Ireland has been working in the field of adult learning and education and popular education for the last fifty years in different roles – teacher/lecturer, researcher, extensionist, activist and administrator - both locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally. In 2004 he was invited to take on the position of National Director for Adult Education in the Ministry of Education during the period from 2004-2007 with responsibility for adult education and literacy policy in Brazil. From there he moved to the UNESCO Brasília Office where he was the national focal point for the organization of CONFINTEA VI in Belém do Pará (Brazil) in 2009. He returned to the University in 2011 and remained there until retirement at the end of March this year. Over the last twenty years he has become increasingly interested and concerned with the relation between adult education, human rights, and the rights of nature as part of the drive towards ecological and epistemological justice. Education needs a "new story", this volume.
Bolatumi Oyegoke holds a PhD in Adult Education from the University of Botswana. Her thesis focused on community development, climate change, ecofeminism, and environmental education. She joined BAISAGO University as a lecturer in 2013, where she was Block Release Coordinator, Lecturer, Head of Department and Currently the Dean, Faculty of Education. She has lived and studied in three countries in Africa: Nigeria, her nationality, eSwatini and Botswana where she is currently resident. She believes that her educational background in the field of science, and the interdisciplinary nature of her educational background, is advantageous in environmental education and more broadly. Women, resilience, waste management, this volume.
We hope you enjoy this bulletin. Deep thanks to Astrid von Kotze and Shauna Butterwick for their co-editorship.
We look forward to working together to secure a just, liveable, and democratic future - together we can extend our reach!
For those who celebrate and plan holidays at the year end, we wish you deep interconnections with all around you.
​With warm greetings.
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Shirley Walters, PIMA President
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