Three different persons, three different perspectives, one question: (How) Can Universities be Linked to Societal Transition Challenges? Coming from distinct academic, pedagogical, and political/activist positions, Ginie Servant-Miklos, Sanne Koevoets and Ana Vasques have quite different ideas about and propositions for transformative education. “We would like to show how we work together to build upon these differences, in order to strengthen the collaborative effort of Design Impact Transition (DIT) to propose, realize, and bring focus to transformative education”, says Ana.
“We share the vision of transformative education as emerging in the “ecotones” of the educational ecosystem”, explains Ana. “Ecotones are regions of transition between biological communities, such as the zone of transition between the forest and an agricultural area. In contrast to the concept of the “margins” (like institutions or social groups), ecotones do not carry the negative connotations of the “marginal” as insufficiency, exclusion, or lack. Instead, ecotones tend to be richer in species than either of the two zones between which they reside: they’re borderspaces, rich in potential for the emergence of new relationships, patterns, and species.”
Ginie, Ana and Sanne explore this potential of the ‘ecotones’ of higher education: “Which concrete transformative pedagogies have emerged in the ecotones in which we work? How do we try to mobilize the potential of what emerges from the ecotones to transform the vast habitats of institutionalized research and education on one side, and late capitalist, postcolonial, patriarchal society, on the other?” Their ways, ideas and propositions may differ, but their presentation will show that we can all learn from each other.
“We can all learn from each other.”