Sustainable learning and some counterculture values in Jamaica: a Rastafarian spiritual ethos to ESD

Abstract

This paper draws on some of the findings of an ethnographic doctoral study on ESD in a Jamaican school and community. The research study explored the interaction between local knowledge, values and practices and dominant Western approaches to education for sustainable development (ESD). Accordingly, the paper focuses on the challenges and lessons revealed by these diverse perspectives and how they can inform academic and policy ESD discourses locally and globally. Imbued with eco-pedagogical and postcolonial perspectives, it proposes that encompassing a Rastafarian spiritual ethos within ESD pedagogical approaches in Jamaica represents a potential to address some of the shortcomings that emerge from a critical review of the international literature on ESD, as well as the drawbacks of ESD implementation in the island.

Keywords:

• Education for sustainable development
• eco-pedagogy
• postcolonialism
• Rastafarian
• Jamaica
• ethnography

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 The terms Rasta and Rastafarian are used interchangeably in this paper according to how the research participants used them.

2 2018 Report on International Religious Freedom: Jamaica, Office of International Religious Freedom of the U.S. Department of State, https://www.state.gov/reports/2018-report-on-international-religious-freedom/jamaica__trashed/, retrieved on 21^st November 2021.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council.