Towards a Pedagogy of Tactics: An alternative view of Education for Sustainable Development

Introduction: Our research focuses on exploring the nature of educational processes within bottom up development practices undertaken by NGOs in Uttarakhand, India in connection with the Decade for Education for Sustainable Development: 2005-2014 (DESD). Over the years, ESD has come to be conceptualized in an instrumental manner that views education as a means of reproduction of ‘correct knowledge and behavior’. This instrumental approach has been criticized for being undemocratic as it limits the scope for the marginalized to contribute to ESD. Consequently, several researchers have put forward the need for a pluralistic vision of ESD that can allow democratization of the space where it is being construed. Objectives: In line with this idea, we draw upon the concept of ‘tactics’ (de Certeau, 1988) to develop an alternative vision on ESD through the development project of a critically positioned Community Based Organization (CBO) in the Himalayas. We choose to research CBOs due to their significant position between global discourses and local commitments, which opens up the space to experiment with alternative practices of sustainability. Methods: An ethnographic approach will be used, based on activity theory (Engeström, 1987) and ‘modes of education’ (Biesta, 2009), to explore a ‘pedagogy of the tactics’ at the levels of the CBO and the local community. Results: We present our analytical framework used in our case study of local practices of a CBO working with communities in Indian Himalayas. In particular, we focus on the relevance of ‘tactics’ to study alternative approaches to ESD from an empirical perspective. We do this in two ways. Firstly, we employ tactics to account for the way CBOs perform, as agents of development, by analyzing their potential to create a space to experiment with alternative ideas of ESD. The significance of these spaces lies in their ability to open a gateway for the public to engage with issues of sustainability in their own way (Blum, 2012). Secondly, we use tactics as an empirical lens to recognize the potential of everyday actions to subvert dominant approaches to sustainability and inspire another view of ESD. Conclusion: In conclusion, we reflect upon how the focus on tactics can facilitate analysis of democratic spaces for construing sustainability. Also, we delve upon tactics as a theoretical device to study an alternative concept of ESD, which we term as ‘pedagogy of tactics’. Finally, we deliberate on the significance of pedagogy of tactics for a justice oriented perspective on ESD drawn from sustainability concerns in the South.status: publishe