Cultivating Resilience: Indigenous Storytelling, Land-Based, and Feminist Pedagogies for Climate Education in Malawi

• In Event: Indigenous, decolonial and epistemic approaches

Proposal

Abstract
In Malawi, where climate shocks devastate lives and livelihoods, significant educational efforts to build resilience are underway; yet, the continued dominance of Western, donor-driven models raises critical questions about epistemic justice. This paper examines how these mainstream approaches, despite their aims, can silence the Indigenous knowledge that has sustained communities for generations. We argue that for climate education to be truly effective, it must be decolonized and reimagined as a fundamental practice of peacebuilding. To this end, I construct a novel pedagogical framework that synthesizes African Oral Tradition (AOTS), land-based education, nego-feminism, and nthano (folklore). This model reframes climate education from a technical fix into a vital process of reconciliation between the Global North and South, generations, genders, and people and the land. Ultimately, the Malawian case offers a paradigm for centering climate-vulnerable education on justice, dignity, and social cohesion.

Introduction: The Paradox of Climate Education in Malawi
Malawi stands on the front lines of the global climate crisis, ranked among the world's most vulnerable nations (Eckstein et al., 2021; INFORM, 2023). Cyclone Freddy (2023) displaced over 650,000 people, while subsequent droughts have pushed over 4.4 million Malawians into severe food insecurity (ReliefWeb, 2024). Within this context arises a profound paradox: the very education systems meant to build resilience are often complicit in perpetuating the crisis. As Chijide and Lotz-Sisitka (2021) demonstrate, climate change education in Malawi is largely shaped by international NGOs and dominated by Western-centric frameworks. These frameworks emphasize technical fixes and fear-based narratives (Kester & Booth, 2022), reflecting a broader, depoliticized global trend that fails to address underlying systemic injustices. Consequently, such approaches constitute a form of eco-imperialism (Blanc, 2022), which systematically displaces Indigenous ecological knowledge (Chilisa, 2012) and sidelines the expertise of women and girls, eroding education’s potential to serve as a site of peace and reconciliation.
This paper is therefore guided by the research question: How can climate change education in Malawi be decolonized and transformed into a practice of peacebuilding that restores epistemic justice, fosters ecological reciprocity, and strengthens social cohesion? In response, I contend it must be radically reimagined through Indigenous and feminist pedagogies, offering critical insights for other postcolonial contexts.

Theoretical Framework: Decolonizing Knowledge for Ecological Peace
Grounded in decolonial, feminist, and peace education scholarship, this paper builds on Escobar’s (1998) critique of "development" and Santos’s (2014) "epistemologies of the South" to challenge the monopoly of Western knowledge. This lens interrogates how mainstream climate curricula function as eco-imperialism (Robbins, 2012), perpetuating a coloniality of knowledge.
I propose four interconnected pillars for a transformative alternative:

African Oral Traditional Storytelling (AOTS): A living archive that transmits ecological ethics and creates participatory spaces for knowledge co-creation (Abdi, 2006; Osei-Tutu, 2023), countering top-down models.
Land-Based Education: Treats land as teacher and relative (Greenwood, 2009), promoting ecological reciprocity and healing the human-land rift.
Nego-Feminism: Centers women’s negotiated, communal ecological leadership (Nnaemeka, 2004), directly addressing gendered epistemic injustice (Chilisa, 2012).
Folklore (Nthano): Embeds practical wisdom in narratives of endurance (Kishindo, 2017; Kwayani, 2021), reducing eco-anxiety and affirming cultural pride for intergenerational peacebuilding.
The synthesis of these frameworks argues that decolonizing climate education is inextricably linked to the project of ecological peace, aiming to heal the divisions that fuel the climate crisis.

Methodology: A Critical Conceptual Synthesis
This paper employs a conceptual mode of inquiry to deconstruct colonial policy logics and construct a new framework for action. This multi-faceted approach includes:
Critical Policy Analysis: Examining donor-driven initiatives to reveal how they sideline Indigenous knowledge.
Conceptual Synthesis: Engaging decolonial, feminist, Indigenous, and peace studies to reconstruct an alternative framework.
Applied Pedagogical Insights: Illustrating how activities (storytelling circles, nthano lessons, school gardens, women’s workshops) can be integrated into educational spaces.
This ensures the research is critically sharp and practically relevant for informing policy and practice.
Results and Contributions
The analysis yields that decolonizing climate education is a fundamental reorientation toward peacebuilding, not an additive reform. Key results show that donor-driven frameworks actively reinforce epistemic injustice by privileging Western science and apocalyptic narratives, erasing intergenerational wisdom, and sidelining women’s expertise. In response, culturally resonant pedagogies offer a necessary alternative: Storytelling and nthano reduce eco-anxiety and strengthen intergenerational ties. Land-based education nurtures reconciliation with nature, shifting pedagogy from extractive to relational. A nego-feminist lens surfaces women’s indispensable ecological leadership, showing that ignoring it perpetuates gendered injustices.
The synthesis demonstrates that climate education rooted in Indigenous epistemologies becomes a practice of healing social and ecological fractures. This paper contributes:
Theoretical-Conceptual: Originality by merging climate and peace education through a novel decolonial, feminist, and Indigenous synthesis. Applied-Practical: Actionable strategies for curriculum reform, teacher training, and policy-making adaptable to other climate-vulnerable, postcolonial contexts.

Conclusion
Malawi’s crisis reveals an urgent need to reimagine education for peace. Current models undermine resilience, while the frameworks of storytelling, land-based learning, nthano, and nego-feminism foster ecological empathy, gender justice, and intergenerational solidarity. This paper argues that equitable climate education is ultimately about reconciliation between North and South, generations, genders, and people and the land. The Malawian case offers a critical lens for global education systems, presenting a clear choice: valorize Western technical fixes or embrace Indigenous and feminist epistemologies to choose a pedagogy of reciprocity and peace. This directly answers the call for innovative solutions for a divided world.

Author

• Sunga Kufeyani, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities