The Poor just might be the educators we need for global sustainability-A manifesto for consulting the unconsulted

Abstract

Achieving global environmental sustainability is a current issue, and one of profound importance for the future of humanity. However, environmental sustainability cannot be meaningfully discussed as an issue in isolation, for it is deeply intertwined with other social justice issues such as education, spirituality and-by extension-humanity's collective understanding of a right and good life. The crucial role of education in achieving global environmental sustainability is universally accepted, although typically understood as a linear process from 'educated' to 'uneducated', from scholarly elites to their students, from 'uppers' to 'lowers'. This is intriguing given the widely accepted understanding that the so-called 'uneducated' poor tend to live far more sustainably than the presumably educated wealthy, and the sustainable lifestyles of the poor are often firmly underpinned by their spirituality. This phenomenon raises important questions in the quest to achieve global environmental sustainability: If the poor have much to teach about sustainable living and contentment, why are they not more actively engaged and enlisted as subject matter experts when it comes to drafting strategic responses to climate change mitigation and profligate living? Are policy makers and development professionals in danger of inadvertently entrenching the status quo where the poor are primarily conceived as service delivery recipients rather than engaged on par as active partners and joint sustainability stakeholders? This mixed methods research is informed by an analysis of expert literature, including a systematic UN document keyword search, and 20 in-depth interviews that engaged 17 development organisations across eight nations. It also addresses contemporary barriers to the inclusion of the voice of the poor as equal participants in this necessary global discourse. A Judeo-Christian Theology underpins this discussion, offering hopeful historical perspectives on theDivine preference for self-revelation and human betterment through the least expected voice. The study extends previous research by focusing expressly on the intersection of sustainability and the humanities as a fertile space for inquiry into auspicious forms of learning about value-based and spiritually shaped sustainability. The research concludes that the poor are overwhelmingly perceived and portrayed as subjects to be helped, rather than as experts to be engaged and heeded. Hence, 'reversals of learning' need to be prioritised, standardised and normalised.