Dr Nadia Sitas, in collaboration with a range of community activists, researchers, teachers and artists has published a monograph following an ambitious year-long action-research and learning journey starting in late 2020. The project used a range of creative and transgressive methodologies, including building on the Seeds of Good Anthropocenes approach developed at the CST.
The resulting monograph, titled Stories of collective learning and care during a pandemic, gives insight into the collective learning under way in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. It explores and demonstrates what kinds of collective learning support, skills ecosystems and capacity mobilisation are needed for a ‘just recovery’ from COVID-19 that can inform basic livelihoods, new forms of work, climate action and long-term transformations for sustainable futures. Eight South African based projects – ranging from the work of long-standing non-governmental and community-based organisations to newly formed constellations of practice in social solidarity – and research that occurred during the first wave of the pandemic, undertook to reflect on the collaborative efforts, ethics, knowledges, practices and technological scaffolding that are needed for education to respond faithfully to these times. These eight reflective stories encourage us to learn from the current praxis under way in ways that can strengthen the efforts of social practitioners, activists, educators and researchers navigating the systemic issues that the COVID-19 pandemic has magnified.