Short Abstract:

The Reparative Futures and Transformative Learning Spaces book outlines the conceptualisation of ‘reparative futures’ as explained by Sriprakash et al. (2020), as well as the importance of transformative learning spaces, which take us forward for actions beyond only critiques of what is wrong and unjust.

Long Abstract:

The Reparative Futures and Transformative Learning Spaces book outlines the conceptualisation of ‘reparative futures’ as explained by Sriprakash et al (2020) as well as the importance of transformative learning spaces which take us forward for actions beyond only critiques of what is wrong and unjust. Sriprakash and her colleagues make the case for learning with the past and from experiences of material, affective, and social oppressions as a methodology to construct reparative futures which are humanising, inclusive, sustainable, and more just, and where past injustices are no longer replicated but repaired. They propose that reparative futures signal a commitment to identify and recognise the injustices visited on, and experienced by, individuals and communities in the past. The concept understands that these past injustices, even when they appear to be distant in time or ‘over,’ will continue to endure in people’s lives in material and affective ways unless, and until, they are consciously and carefully addressed. Such injustices might include racism, patriarchy, colonialism, climate injustices, among others. Reparative futures and reparative spaces can then be a generative basis for knowledge and the shaping of transformative learning spaces—critical, reflective, changed understandings, and worldviews—in participatory ways and processes which value the lives of ordinary people and celebrate their knowledge, agency, resilience, and hopes in building different futures. Collective learning, historical thinking, and ethical listening and dialogue would all feature, aimed at transforming the world rather than adapting to an unethical past/present/future and the transformative power of ‘being’ through education and solidarity. Collectively imagined futures would ground emergent transformations and learning and reparative agency. Reparative futures and such learning are then potential contributions to sustainable human development and well-being and to decolonisation. The chapter further introduces the capability approach to show that reparative futures require the formation of valuable beings and doings (capabilities and functionings) and the enhancement of agency towards human development ends.

Structure and goals of the author-meets-critics section

The goal of this session is twofold: on one side is to present the main insights of the book from different book authors; on the other side, is to establish a conversation with capability scholars on the book to think collectively on the relevance of learning spaces to enact reparative futures.

The session will begin with the presentation, by Alejandra Boni, of the main insights of the collection of cases that populated the book organized in this manner:

- A depiction of the learning practices and methodologies to construct reparative futures.

- A comment on the main and diverse actors fostering these futures: community researchers, student activists, artists, policymakers and practitioners, and defenders of the LGTBIQ+ community, among many others. They all provide vivid examples of how building reparative futures is a collective task that should be promoted from several flanks. These actors are performing at local, national, and international levels in different geographies in African, European and Latin American countries.

- A sketch of the policy context in which the learning spaces are promoted:. Moreover, as this book shows, a reparative future implies transforming different systems: education, food, health, innovation, or development aid.

- An account of the key capabilities underlined in the different cases as central to enacting reparative futures.

After this introductory presentation, the session will focus on four examples of transformative learning spaces presented in the book:

- Firstly, Melanie Walker will describe the main contribution of her chapter in the space of higher education in South Africa and the possibility of an inclusive decolonising education future (weaving together reparative futures with freedom, equality and dignity as key reparative values). She will outline the meaning of reparative futures before explaining relevant capabilitarian ideas. The conceptual frames are taken up about the digital stories-as-practice produced by participants. In particular, she proposes that reparative futures require expanding and expressing human capabilities and functionings and the opportunity to live flourishing lives.

- Secondly, Álvaro Fernández-Baldor will present the contribution of the Network of Community Researchers (NCR) to human security in the city of Medellín, Colombia. The NCR is an experience of co-production of knowledge from below between community researchers and academics promoted by the University of Antioquia in Medellín, which Medellín is one of the most unequal cities in Latin America and internationally known for the armed conflict associated with drug trafficking. However, it also stands out for its extensive organisational and community networking in favour of peace and the defence of the human rights of all the people who live on the slopes of the city. From this perspective, the NCR plays a fundamental role in articulating transformative learning spaces, struggles and dreams and achieving a peaceful future and a more just, inclusive and sustainable city.

- Thirdly, Diana Velasco will reflect on the type of research and innovation policies that might repair unsustainable pathways in Catalonia. It also seeks to ascertain how the driving forces of change can be sensed and how we can let go of the past and let just and sustainable futures emerge. She contends that, by understanding how different frames of science and innovation policies have led to current undesirable effects in Catalonia, collective actors can learn from the past as a source of present and future action, imagining and realising reparative futures towards just transitions.

- Fourthly, Marina Santi and Elisabetta Ghedin introduce the construct of ‘connective capability,’ in terms of collective capability distributed within the community, considered as a cue for the policy goals of educational systems as a dynamic component of well-becoming. Second, to explore Philosophy for Children as a suitable pedagogical approach to promote capable communities in which agents enhance their ‘complex thinking’ to connect people’s free imagination in pursuing their own flourishing and reparative futures.

The last part of the session will be a dialogue between the authors and two reputed capability scholars, Alexander Frediani and Petya Ilieva, who will bring their perspectives and comments which a dialogue with the audience will follow