New Chapter, New Book

At the invitation of the editors I have contributed a chapter to this book entiled'   

Ison. R.L. (2012) A cybersystemic framework for practical action. In Murray, J., Cawthorne, G., Dey, C., and Andrew, C. eds. Enough for All Forever. A Handbook for Learning about Sustainability, pp. 269-84. Champaign, Illinois: Common Ground Publishing.
 

This book can now be purchased from the publisher's online bookstore. 

Learning for Sustainability

Chris Blackmore and I have just had a chapter published in “Learning for Sustainability in Times of Accelerating Change”.  It is one of our contributions to Rio+20.  This timely book – which appears at the brink of Rio +20 -  contains 31 chapters from authors from around the world. The book is introduced by Juliet Schor (author of True Wealth: how and why millions of Americans are creating a time-rich, ecologically-light, small-scale high-satisfaction economy) while the epilogue has been written by Stephen Sterling (Professor of Sustainability Education, Centre for Sustainable Futures, Plymouth University, United Kingdom).

We are living in times of incertitude, complexity, and contestation, but also of connectivity, responsibility, and new opportunities. This book analyses the consequences of these times for learning in formal, non-formal, and informal education. It explores the possibilities offered by the concept of sustainability as a central category of a holistic paradigm which harmonizes human beings with Earth. To change people and to change the world are interdependent processes - this book contributes to both. 

 Moacir Gadotti, Director of Paulo Freire Institute, São Paulo, Brazil.

Please have a look at the blog – www.transformativelearning.nl where you will find a more detailed description of the book and a link to the publisher should you be interested in purchasing the book. See also the link under News on the right.  If appropriate please share this posting with your colleagues and networks.

Senegal - back to Africa

As I stepped out of the plane and made my way into the terminal in Dakar I began to realise that I had not been back to Africa for 31 years.  Over my week long visit to Senegal I was constantly taken back to that first visit I had paid to Dar es Salaam in 1980-81.  It did not take me long to understand that my numerous visits to South Africa from 1994 were different.  South Africa has been a different Africa.

Dakar is not a great city, but the Senegalese have every right to be proud of their country and the strength of their democracy.  The rains had not arrived on our visit - but they were due.  On our trip to Bambey and Tuaba farmers were already planting crops in anticipation of the rains. The mosque at Tuaba was among the most impressive I have seen.

Visiting an NGO office and later an experiment station at Bambey on our one trip beyond Dakar took me back to many similar visits in Asia and Africa.  The rest of the time was spent indoors in Dakar listening to research on and for  'food security' being discussed and reported. We were well looked after by our hosts at CORAF/WECARD.

On our short visit to Goree Island I was pleased to see the Mariama Ba school for girls, having read her novella, 'So Long a Letter' before arriving in Dakar. Like all tourists we learnt that the wall-scaling scenes in the Guns of Navarone had been filmed on the island, though there is no mention of this fact in the movie's entry in Wikipedia!