‘We are the soil’ to a movement with ‘peasants in the centre:’ The grassroots-social movement learning nexus in Roșia Montană, Romania

Abstract

Mining development often threatens rural areas with dispossession, but these processes foment learning and opposition by locals, their grassroots organisations, and transnational solidarity campaigns/movements. Emergent solidarity nexuses are sites of knowledge production and amplify grassroots struggles. This article explores how a local grassroots struggle against a proposed mining project at Roșia Montană, Romania was catalysed by processes of incidental learning—through local experiences with preparatory development—which gave rise to more intentional forms of local learning and place-based praxis. The formation of a growing trans/national solidarity network arose from these early efforts and intertwined with the grassroots struggle, augmenting knowledge production with non-formal and formal approaches to learning. Knowledge was produced through various forms and towards critical, informational, tactical, and strategic purposes. The findings herein contribute to the literature on a broadened understanding of adult education from the lens of learning in social action. Further, this article offers an exploratory description of the processes of learning in social action at a nexus of grassroots struggle and a trans/national solidarity network and contributes to an understanding of how diverse forms of learning in social action are integral to processes of local and national social change.