Walking the talk: autoethnographic reflections on co-creating regenerative education within international development studies

Abstract

In this article, I reflect on what it means to walk the talk of regenerative forms of education that foster more vitality within the communities, institutions and societies we live in. I discuss my experiences as a lecturer and initiator of a regeneratively designed co-created education innovation project that I worked on with research master’s students of international development studies. The project was initiated in 2016 to serve the needs of an international community of learners at the University of Amsterdam. It is designed based on regenerative design principles and serves as a space for students to explore, critique and increase ownership over their educational journeys. Drawing on regenerative, transgressive, social justice, contemplative, relational, creative, ­decolonising and anti-oppression pedagogies, the project Critical Development and Diversity Explorations (CDDE) aims to co-create a non-hierarchical and more engaged, embodied learning space to develop students’ – and my own – critical reflective potential as agents of change. Applying an auto-ethnographic methodology, and drawing on a hybrid-epistemological approach, I aim to illustrate my insights on the cause, purpose and aspirations of the CDDE project and invite you as the reader to bring such reflections alive in your own thinking in a real-life context of your own.