Educating for Sociality: Rethinking Human Relations in the Pursuit of Peace

• In Event: Reframing Peace in Education: Social Justice, Voice, and Epistemic Equity

Proposal

This conceptual paper builds on the thesis that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UNDHR), while foundational, offers necessary but insufficient conditions for realizing inclusive and peaceful societies. It argues that the implementation of human rights is not merely a legal task but a deeply social and educational endeavor. It calls for a rethinking of social relations through education that fosters participatory world-building, relational ethics, and inclusive knowledge production.
The paper begins by revisiting José Saramago’s Nobel Prize speech, which highlights the persistent gap between the ceremonial affirmation of human rights and their lived realization. This gap, it is argued, stems from an overemphasis on legal frameworks and a neglect of the social and relational dimensions of human rights. The paper proposes that education must prepare individuals not only to know their rights but to engage in the sociality required to enact them—by getting to know different worlds, seeking diversity, striving for understandings, and finding connections to oneself by embracing ‘otherness’.
Philosophical and anthropological perspectives, particularly those of Karl Löwith and Hannah Arendt, are central to this rethinking. Löwith’s concept of the “with-world” frames human beings as inherently relational, whose identities and agency are constituted through their relationships with others. Arendt’s notion of natality emphasizes the potential of each new human being to renew society, challenging educators to create spaces where this potential can be recognized and cultivated. These perspectives shift the focus from legal status to lived sociality, suggesting that collective life is not about regulating others but caring for their well-being and fostering mutual recognition.
The paper then explores how education can support participatory world-building. Drawing on Sheila Jasanoff’s (2004) concept of co-production, it argues that educational spaces must enable the collaborative creation of knowledge, institutions, and social norms. Co-production involves not only the stabilization of new framings and the resolution of controversies but also the development of cross-boundary practices and context-sensitive adjustments. In this view, education becomes a site for democratic engagement, where learners and educators co-create the conditions for inclusive and just communities.
This conceptual contribution emphasizes the educational echoes of participatory striving. It argues that education must go beyond informing individuals of their rights to fostering the reflexivity, openness, and critical engagement necessary for co-producing inclusive social worlds. This involves unlearning privileged positions, recognizing the situatedness of others, and embracing pluriversal thinking. The paper highlights the challenges of this process, including the pain of status renegotiation and the need for pedagogical settings that support vulnerability, dialogue, and transformation.
The proposal also engages with critiques of neoliberalism, particularly Wendy Brown’s (2015) concern about the depoliticization and fragmentation of the demos. Brown’s analysis aligns with Löwith’s worry about the erosion of the “with-world” and underscores the need for education to reclaim collective agency and democratic deliberation. In this context, human rights must be reimagined not as static legal entitlements but as dynamic social practices rooted in care, solidarity, and shared responsibility.
Finally, the paper reflects on the global dimensions of participatory world-building. It acknowledges the disparities in life circumstances and the need for differentiated processes of unlearning and re-learning across societies. Drawing on postcolonial critiques (Spivak, 1988; Mignolo, 2011; Escobar, 2018), it calls for the decolonization of knowledge systems and the inclusion of marginalized epistemologies. Education, in this view, becomes a vehicle for global solidarity and the co-creation of just futures.
By rethinking social relations through a human rights lens and emphasizing the educational tasks of participatory world-building, this conceptual paper contributes to the CIES 2026 theme, “Re-examining Education and Peace in a Divided World.” It offers a vision of education as a transformative force that prepares individuals for inclusive sociality and democratic engagement in a fractured global landscape.

Selected references:
- Saramago, J. (1998). Stockholm Speeches.
- Löwith, K. (2022). Mensch und Menschenwelt.
- Arendt, H. (1954). The Crisis in Education.
- Jasanoff, S. (2004). States of Knowledge: The Co-Production of Science and Social Order.
- Brown, W. (2015). Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s Stealth Revolution.
- Spivak, G. C. (1988). Can the Subaltern Speak?
- Mignolo, W. (2011). The Darker Side of Western Modernity.
- Escobar, A. (2018). Designs for the Pluriverse.

Author

• Sabine Krause, Université de Fribourg