A regenerative decolonization perspective on ESD from Latin America

ABSTRACT

This paper provides a Latin American perspective on ESD, with a focus on transformative and participatory learning in community contexts. With a long history of critical pedagogies, Latin America provides a fertile ground for exploring alternative forms of education as a means to address deep-rooted challenges in western traditional strands of education. We start by providing an overview of pertinent educational currents present in Latin America, then ground these perspectives in two case studies carried out by the authors – one from Colombia, the other from Brazil – which explore grassroots initiatives in community settings that utilise different forms of education and learning. We then propose an integrative model to foster alternative educational approaches that might lead to decolonial and regenerative praxis, finishing with a discussion on how Latin American-rooted regenerative decolonisation perspective and praxis can inform global ESD discourses.

KEYWORDS:

• Regeneration
• decolonisation
• Latin America
• education for sustainable development
• buen vivir
• pluriverse
• participatory action research
• popular education

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).