Reflections on sustainable peacebuilding in education within an adolescent literacy study in a refugee and asylum-seeking community in Johannesburg, South Africa

• In Event: Poster Group 6
  In Poster Session: Reflections on sustainable peacebuilding in education within an adolescent literacy study in a refugee and asylum-seeking community in Johannesburg, South Africa

Proposal

In the aftermath of protest, social transformation or reform occurs and communities are left with the challenge of imagining a new world. Education systems often are included in this social transformation, yet these systems are embedded in complex local, national and global political economies that are shaped by this relationship. Transformation at multiple levels is needed in conflict-affected societies to support positive peace and to address (rather than reproduce or sustain) the injustice and inequality that drive conflicts. One such tool for promoting transformation is Novelli, Lopes Cardozo and Smith's 4Rs Analytical Framework for Sustainable Peacebuilding in Education which is a framework for researching and analysing the peacebuilding role of education in conflict-affected contexts. The four dimensions (building on the work of Nancy Fraser) are redistribution, recognition, representation and reconciliation. The presentation summarises the application of the 4Rs framework to education in refugee and asylum-seeking communities in Johannesburg, South Africa within an adolescent literacy study. The application to the South African context provides insight into the dynamics within the education system in South Africa which is itself a postconflict context, having emerged from the apartheid regime just 30 years ago. South Africa experienced high levels of migration into the country by refugees, asylum-seekers and migrants beginning in the 1990s and 2000s due to conflict and instability in central Africa and political instability in Zimbabwe during the same period. Currently, South Africa faces intersecting and overlapping forms of conflict, including refugee-host community tensions in the form of xenophobia. Although refugees have access to schooling and government-funded universities, this occurs within the context of historical deprivation of local populations. The presentation outlines the challenges in accessing and working with refugee and asylum-seeking communities in Johannesburg. The study sought to be participatory in nature, but connecting with the refugee and asylum-seeking community proved more challenging than anticipated. This learning is valuable for those who intend to work with refugees and asylum-seekers who are integrated in local host communities but also experience challenges specific to their refugee communities. Points raised in the presentation allow for reflection, especially related to the challenges and barriers that adolescent learners and their parents or caregivers experience when accessing education and developing literacy in English in South Africa, and therefore ways in which these communities may be better served and supported. These efforts are aligned to the quest to bring about more just and inclusive educational futures.

Author

• Catherine Langsford