Managing the GAP between rich and poor? Biopolitics and (ab)normalized inequality in South African education for sustainable development

Abstract

The extreme inequality in South African education is well-documented by researchers. There is also a rich literature concerned with education for sustainable development (ESD) in the country. The relationship between these two phenomena has, however, been sparsely investigated. Drawing on biopolitical theory and fieldwork conducted in South Africa, this paper queries how ESD programmes handle the lifestyle gap that separates rich and poor populations. The article demonstrates how ESD, through ostensible sensitivity to local 'realities', is adjusted to comply with different socio-economic living conditions, and how different roles are assigned to rich and poor in the quest for sustainable development. This differentiation, it is argued, can be understood biopolitically. The paper further argues that the differentiation between populations in rich and poor settings implies a depoliticized notion of local 'realities' as something isolated and given, rather than relational and produced. While the overall findings suggest that ESD unfolds through a regime of practice wherein inequality has become effectively normalized, the paper also points to rare disruptive moments where the normal is rendered abnormal. Ultimately it is argued that the South African case is a useful entry-point for discussing generic problems of globally implementing ESD in an enormously unequal world. ARTICLE HISTORY

“… It is like it has come up and stole our lives from us” The first 21 days: A rapid qualitative assessment of how different sectors of society experienced the COVID-19 lockdown in South Africa

“…The presence and spread of SARS-CoV-2 in South Africa exposed the country's long-existing economic, social, education, and health complexities and inequalities ( Knutsson, 2020 ). Of the country's population of 59 million, only 16% are either members of medical schemes or can afford to pay for private and better-resourced healthcare, while the rest rely on the strained, under-resourced public healthcare system ( Horn et al, 2020 ; Maphumulo & Bhengu, 2019 ; Naidoo, 2012 ).…”

The Who? Didactics, differentiation and the biopolitics of inequality

“…To us, this is what a biopolitics of inequality is all about: a governing of life that presupposes, adapts to, normalizes and reproduces inequality. As argued elsewhere, such normalization of inequality is a salient feature of global ESD implementation (Knutsson 2019(Knutsson , 2020 and it also strikes us as an important element of a broader problematization of the didactic who?-question.…”

“…Previous biopolitical research has suggested that in progressive attempts to localize ESD, and make it relevant to the lived experience of particular groups, it is adjusted to comply with different socio-economic living conditions. This adjustment of ESD to who the students (presumably) are, and to the contexts in which they are situated, typically involves a depoliticized notion of local "realities" as something given and isolated rather than produced and relational (Knutsson 2019(Knutsson , 2020. The implication of this is that inequality becomes effectively normalized.…”

“…Schools enrolled in the Eco-Schools programme independently select the projects they undertake and how they go about implementing them, and in this way it reflects a liberal biopolitics (cf. Knutsson 2020). According to the Eco-Schools' global website, the programme is to be rooted in the local community and engage students in "problems at a level where they can see tangible results" with an overall ambition to have a "life-long positive impact on the lives of young people" and to change "behavioural patterns" that the students will "carry with them through life".…”

Relationally Enhancing Teacher Education in Early Childhood Learning Environments towards Sustainability

“…For example, the now cliché of the huge gap that exists between the poor and the rich is nowhere greater in the world than in South Africa (Sarkodie & Adams, 2020). High rates of poverty and unemployment are recorded among the African and Black people in South Africa, ranging between 30% to 64% in some localities (Knutsson, 2020). Inequality in the levels of education, wealth and status is vividly marked between those who got a deliberate push and an early start in life through an effective ECCE, versus those who relied solely on fate to get ahead in life.…”