Description
Book SynopsisHow social movements learn in struggle, produce knowledge, and provoke public paradigm shifts have become an important focus of critical adult education in our contemporary turbulent times. And yet, African social movements, and their learning are largely absent from this literature. This work, therefore, provides a rare and much needed African contribution to this field. African Social Movement Learning: The Case of the Ada Songor Salt Movement speaks to this gap in the literature, laying out an entry-point to an African-centered account of learning in struggle on the continent. However, this entry-point quickly turns to an in-depth sharing of one particular case of African social movement learning. Based on 9 years of research with the Ada Songor salt movement in Ghana, the book provides a detailed account of learning through defending communal access to West Africa’s largest salt yielding lagoon in the face of local, national and global efforts to expropriate this resource. The book shares the knowledge production of the movement, as well as the ways in which the movement has restoried its struggle to meet new challenges. Songs, tapestries, demonstrations, manifestoes, popular education approaches, and book production all feature in these efforts.
Table of ContentsForeword Anne Harley List of Illustrations Chapter 1: Introduction Social Movement and Social Movement Learning Studies Social Movement Learning in Ghana – A Gathering of Voices A History of Movements Defending Communal Access Moving with the Ada Movement Structure of the Book Chapter 2: African Social Movements and Learning Social Movement Studies and Subaltern Movements Social Movement Learning and Critical Adult Education 1st Wave: African Liberation Movements From the 2nd Wave of Democratization to the 3rd Wave of Contemporary Ctruggles 2nd Wave: African Democracy Movements 3rd Wave: Protest Movements in Contemporary Times Moving from Africa to Ada Chapter 3: Ada Movement Knowledge Production, Questioning National Development National Development and Neoliberalism as Topographies of Power The Adas, a Salt People from the Start Ada Songor Focus of British Colonial Divide and Rule Tactics in Area Ghana Emerges from the Gold Coast Colony, but the Post Independence State Still Promotes the National over the Local Adas Dispossessed, Fight back through Legal, Political and Physical Means A New Dispossession on the Horizon Means New Tactics Are Needed Resisting the National Development and Neoliberal Narrative Chapter 4: Stories and Restorying as Social Movement Learning Literacy of Struggle Challenging How the Root Causes of Struggle are Framed The Thumbless Hand, the Chameleon, and the Dog Challenging Male Dominance through Rooted Restorying The Struggle of the Songor Salt People Book Project Restorying Struggle as Learning Chapter 5: The Pedagogy of Creative Dissent: Using Creativity to Broaden and Deepen Social Movement Learning Introduction Creative Dissent and Pedagogy Creativity, Learning and Democratizing Knowledge Overlapping Registers of “Spreading” Learning and Creativity Chapter 6: Conclusion African Subaltern Movements Thinking and Acting on Their Future African Subaltern Social Movements Producing Potential Creativity and Non-Violent Activism Where the Movement Is Headed Now, or the Latest Area of Learning Learning in, through and to Struggle Appendix A References Index
