From Damage to Repair: Global Majority Philosophies of Sustainability in Higher Education

Description

This talk draws on the speakers’ recently published creative manifesto pertaining to the role of higher education in the sustainable development goals. Epistemic injustice, racism, material imbalances between the Global North and South, and the dominance of neopositivism in comparative and international education (CIE) research are shaping global knowledge production processes. In the field of sustainability education, emphasis is often placed on UN frameworks and goalposts, with little consideration of local knowledges that predate the creation of international institutions and the very concepts of nation-states themselves. The speakers argue that such one-way, simplistic narratives of the assumed absence of sustainability capacities neglect and, hence, contribute to the erasure of local knowledges on sustainable living. They aim in their creative manifesto to “repair” such epistemically unjust practices by theorizing the concepts of budi and obal to offer alternative imaginaries of sustainability in higher education – ontologically, epistemically, and axiologically. It is written in a manifesto format to inspire an urgent conversation on this challenging issue with creativity, care, consideration, and imagination.

Period	3 Feb 2026
Held at	Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain, United Kingdom
Degree of Recognition	International