The Firebrand Ethic of Transnational Ontology: Activism, Religion and the Globalisation of Critical Educational Practice

• In Event: "How Power Works: Complementary Perspectives on Reproduction, Resistance, and Change"

Proposal

This paper is focused on activism perceived in terms of radical transnationalism and innovation in global citizenship education (GCE). The presenter highlights the analytic character of global activism by locating it in a diagnosis of post-enlightenment reason and culture that originates in the historical interpretation of nation, religion, metaphysics and nature. Drawing on research into regional interpretations of GCE in an Azerbaijani and Australian context; including indigenous perspectives on sustainability the presenter argues for a global agency in line with Jurgen Habermas'(2023) interpretation of the development of Western thought, its patterns found in the traditions of Judaism, Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism and their shaping of contemporary transnational ontologies. Patterns that simultaneously drive innovative interpretations of the 'indigenous alternative'. This analysis lays the groundwork for an argument that the constitutive role played by the discourse on faith and knowledge in the development of a critical GCE is the result of the unique symbiosis that activism, religion and globalisation offer (McTaggart and Palmer, 2018). This presentation will be of interest to those researching global flow, religion and the discourse on renewed ways of calibrating global modes of critical educational practice.

Author

• Nicholas Palmer, Deakin University