Obal and Budi Philosophies as Reparative Visions of Sustainability in Higher Education: A Creative Manifesto

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. We 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. Our goal in this article is 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. The article is written in a manifesto format to inspire an urgent conversation on this challenging issue with creativity, care, consideration, and imagination.