Forming an Eco-social Capability in the South African Higher Education Space

Our responses to urgent ecological challenges will shape justice into the future. Given that university graduates will become leaders in politics, the professions and businesses, the paper addresses the possibility of university contributions, sketching inputs for a meta eco-social capability in which social and ecological change are embedded one within the other. The capability is underpinned by three conceptually identified and intersecting capabilities: planetary consciousness, repair, and transformative learning. The framework was applied in a case study of two South African universities to investigate and understand how “sustainability” was understood by diverse stakeholders, and what was being done to address historical social and environmental injustices and stop them recurring in the future. This provides a context for the focus which follows on the arts-based participatory story-telling strand to foster eco-social capability formation. We used a “hybrid” photovoice method with a mixed group of student and staff who produced photo-stories about what mattered to them with regard to a “sustainable” university. They shared these at a public exhibition and seminar on the campus. We examined the stories and considered also, what participants said to us for evidence of the formation of an eco-social capability. Finally, we note the limits of small-scale participatory projects, but also possibilities for learning as change.