Contribution short abstract:

In this short workshop based on Mezirow’s (2000) transformative learning principles, we will explore how we might break out of our linear sustainability thinking. What might it mean to think in circles? By doing so, can we 'unwrite' and transform how we approach learning for sustainablity?

Contribution long abstract:

Space and place shape our thinking. In many traditions, learning occurs in circles, from First Nations talking circles to Freirean culture circles. Yet our modern higher education culture overwhelmingly favours linearity. It places learners in rows opposite a teacher, which emphasises hierarchy and prioritises learning as knowledge transference instead of co-creation and collaboration.

In parallel, notions of circularity are fundamental to the concept of sustainability (the circle of life, recycling). Yet sustainable development narratives retain modernist ideas of hierarchies and linear progress, with humans as the only actors striving to move us ever onwards towards further sustainability goals. Why is our thinking thus constrained? To what extent are our assumptions conditioned by how we position our learning?

In this short circle workshop based on Mezirow’s (2000) transformative learning principles, we will explore how we might break out of our linear sustainability thinking. Starting with a disorienting dilemma in the middle of our circle, we will investigate what happens when our thinking goes around and around. Can we challenge ourselves to unravel our tightly-knit hegemonic assumptions about sustainability? When we know our thoughts will return to us, does it encourage our thinking to transform rather than merely (re)transmit? How comfortable are we outside our linear thinking culture?