Jonathan Langdon | St Francis Xavier University (Nova Scotia, Canada) (original) (raw)

Books by Jonathan Langdon

Research paper thumbnail of The Struggle of the Songor Salt People Ada Songor Advocacy Forum 2016 rev

Comboni Press - Creative Commons License, 2016

This is a movement produced book, written and edited by members of the Ada Singer Advocacy Forum ... more This is a movement produced book, written and edited by members of the Ada Singer Advocacy Forum (ASAF), including members of the Yihi Katseme/Ada Songhor Salt Women's Association, the Ada Songhor Salt Cooperative and Radio Ada. Dr. Jonathan Langdon, and a group of research assistants for St. Francis Xavier University also contributed to the writing and editing. The book was further vetted by Toflokpor community members in 2015. Dr. Langdon was asked to share this online for dissemination in 2018. The print version of the text is available for purchase from Yihi Katseme members - order through their Facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/YihiKatseme/. All proceeds go to efforts to defend communal access and livelihood for all in the Songor.

Research paper thumbnail of African Social Movement Learning: the Case of the Ada Songor Salt Movement

Brill Sense, 2020

How social movements learn in struggle, produce knowledge, and provoke public paradigm shifts hav... more How 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.

Research paper thumbnail of Indigenous Knowledges, Development and Education

Papers by Jonathan Langdon

Research paper thumbnail of Timeline of Events Surrounding Songor

BRILL eBooks, Jan 27, 2020

Research paper thumbnail of Towards co-creation of sciences: Building on the plurality of worldviews, values and methods in different knowledge communities

Cultural and Pedagogical Inquiry, Aug 27, 2013

Research paper thumbnail of Pedagogy of Song and Restorying Hope

BRILL eBooks, Apr 26, 2020

Research paper thumbnail of “To Die is Honey, and to Live is Salt”: Indigenous Epistemologies of Wellness in Northern Ghana and the Threat of Institutionalized Containment

In a recent article, Dr. Peter Arhin (2008), Director of the Trathtional and Alternative Methcine... more In a recent article, Dr. Peter Arhin (2008), Director of the Trathtional and Alternative Methcine Directorate of Ghana’s Ministry of Health (MoH), wrote, “[T] rathtional methcine and complementary and alternative [methcine] is emerging from a long period of systemic global marginalization” (p. 4). Arhin is not alone in placing a renewed emphasis on Trathtional Methcine in the Ghanaian and African contexts. In fact, the World Health Organization (WHO) has noted, “TM [is] one of the surest means to achieve total health coverage of the world’s population” (Sarpong, 2008, p. 6). This is especially true in Ghana where 70 percent of the population use trathtional methcine as its first choice for well-being (Arhin, 2008; Sarpong, 2008).

Research paper thumbnail of Ada Movement Knowledge Production, Questioning National Development

BRILL eBooks, Jan 27, 2020

Research paper thumbnail of Stories and Restorying as Social Movement Learning

BRILL eBooks, Jan 27, 2020

Research paper thumbnail of An unfractured line

Policy Press eBooks, Jun 5, 2019

Research paper thumbnail of Restor(y)ing hope: stories as social movement learning in ada songor salt movement

Education As Change, 2017

Stories are a central component of how we understand ourselves and our societies in our world. Th... more Stories are a central component of how we understand ourselves and our societies in our world. This is especially true in the case of oral cultures. Stories, how they are used, how they are reframed, and how they change over time, are also an important record of learning. Randall (1996) and Kenyon and Randall (1997) have called this process restorying. This article explores how a social movement in Ada, ghana, has been using stories to both learn and share that learning through several phases of struggle over the past six years. This movement aims to defend the 400-year-old communal artisanal salt production practice that is the livelihood of over 60,000 people. Women make up the majority of these practitioners. The aim of this paper is both to reveal the power of these stories for popular education and to explore how in restorying these stories over time the movement reveals the ongoing depth of learning. This paper also discusses how the alliance between the movement and the local community radio contributes to this restorying and learning.

Research paper thumbnail of African Social Movements and Learning

BRILL eBooks, Jan 27, 2020

Research paper thumbnail of Service Learning and Solidarity: Politics, Possibilities and Challenges of Experiential Learning

International volunteering and experiential learning programs provide important opportunities for... more International volunteering and experiential learning programs provide important opportunities for personal and academic growth for students, universities and communities. However, they also have the potential of reinforcing neocolonial frameworks of power and privilege. Furthermore, these programs occur more and more in an academic context where short-term experiences are promoted, and longterm programs abandoned in the wake of neoliberal university policies. This paper is a reflection on the politics, possibilities and challenges of starting a new experiential learning endeavour through the Service Learning Program at St. Francis Xavier (StFX) University from a critical standpoint by exploring tensions and power dynamics of such programs whilst working from a decolonizing and solidarity-based pedagogy of development.

Research paper thumbnail of Indigenous Knowledges, Development and Education

Research paper thumbnail of Moving with the movement: Collaboratively building a participatory action research study of social movement learning in Ada, Ghana

Action Research, Aug 17, 2015

While participatory research methods, especially participatory action research, are a recognized ... more While participatory research methods, especially participatory action research, are a recognized approach to the study of social movement learning, the way in which this participatory relationship is framed and designed has deep implications on the collaborative nature of the research. Studies overly framed and designed by academics, as opposed to collectively designed with movements, run the risk of mining movements for information as opposed to contributing to their goals and learning. This paper describes a co-owned design process, based on established relationships, with a social movement in Ghana where being based in movement-articulations helps the research move with the movement. This co-owned process sets the stage for the emergence of movement embedded knowledge democracy.

Research paper thumbnail of An unfractured line: an academic tale of self-reflective social movement learning in the Nova Scotia anti-fracking movement

Policy Press eBooks, Jun 5, 2019

The chapter shares a series of reflections garnered from being involved in Anti-fracking and subs... more The chapter shares a series of reflections garnered from being involved in Anti-fracking and subsequent social movement organizing in Nova Scotia/Mi’kma’ki, Canada, from 2010 until now. Providing a framework for these reflections is Foley’s notion of social movement learning in struggle as I went from being part of demonstrations, to helping organize them, to working on submissions to an expert panel, to working with the steering committee of Nova Scotia’s anti-fracking coalition. The story of the Nova Scotia anti-fracking movement describes how we were able to build a successful alliance between communities of the Mi’kmaq First Nation and Nova Scotia settlers that pressured government, even through a change in ruling parties, to legislate a ban on fracking. This unfractured movement speaks to the potential to use the original treaties between the Mi’kmaq and the British as a source of unity in popular struggle.

Research paper thumbnail of Translocal Social Movement Learning in the Face of COVID-19: Building Online Solidarity During Lockdowns

Education As Change, Aug 22, 2022

Social movements are at the forefront of fighting for another world as conceptualised through Aru... more Social movements are at the forefront of fighting for another world as conceptualised through Arundhati Roy's portal. COVID-19 and state measures imposed to contend with it have severely impacted not only the activism of movements, but also their capacity to learn. Translocal social movement learning offers one way in which such learning can continue. This article shares reflections from participants involved in a translocal learning engagement between movement members and activist-scholars from Ghana, South Africa and Canada. It provides an important example of the kind of non-hierarchal social movement learning that can happen at a distance, when movements share, learn and support one another.

Research paper thumbnail of Social Movement Learning in Ghana

SensePublishers eBooks, 2011

The “globalization project”(McMichael, 2008, p. 21) is inextricably intertwined with neoliberalis... more The “globalization project”(McMichael, 2008, p. 21) is inextricably intertwined with neoliberalism, and has had a dramatic effect on the people of the Global South. Neoliberal globalization has been devastating for rural populations pushed off their lands in order to ...

Research paper thumbnail of African Social Movement Learning

How social movements learn in struggle, produce knowledge, and provoke public paradigm shifts hav... more How 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.

Research paper thumbnail of Building Bridges from Broken Bones

Research paper thumbnail of The Struggle of the Songor Salt People Ada Songor Advocacy Forum 2016 rev

Comboni Press - Creative Commons License, 2016

This is a movement produced book, written and edited by members of the Ada Singer Advocacy Forum ... more This is a movement produced book, written and edited by members of the Ada Singer Advocacy Forum (ASAF), including members of the Yihi Katseme/Ada Songhor Salt Women's Association, the Ada Songhor Salt Cooperative and Radio Ada. Dr. Jonathan Langdon, and a group of research assistants for St. Francis Xavier University also contributed to the writing and editing. The book was further vetted by Toflokpor community members in 2015. Dr. Langdon was asked to share this online for dissemination in 2018. The print version of the text is available for purchase from Yihi Katseme members - order through their Facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/YihiKatseme/. All proceeds go to efforts to defend communal access and livelihood for all in the Songor.

Research paper thumbnail of African Social Movement Learning: the Case of the Ada Songor Salt Movement

Brill Sense, 2020

How social movements learn in struggle, produce knowledge, and provoke public paradigm shifts hav... more How 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.

Research paper thumbnail of Indigenous Knowledges, Development and Education

Research paper thumbnail of Timeline of Events Surrounding Songor

BRILL eBooks, Jan 27, 2020

Research paper thumbnail of Towards co-creation of sciences: Building on the plurality of worldviews, values and methods in different knowledge communities

Cultural and Pedagogical Inquiry, Aug 27, 2013

Research paper thumbnail of Pedagogy of Song and Restorying Hope

BRILL eBooks, Apr 26, 2020

Research paper thumbnail of “To Die is Honey, and to Live is Salt”: Indigenous Epistemologies of Wellness in Northern Ghana and the Threat of Institutionalized Containment

In a recent article, Dr. Peter Arhin (2008), Director of the Trathtional and Alternative Methcine... more In a recent article, Dr. Peter Arhin (2008), Director of the Trathtional and Alternative Methcine Directorate of Ghana’s Ministry of Health (MoH), wrote, “[T] rathtional methcine and complementary and alternative [methcine] is emerging from a long period of systemic global marginalization” (p. 4). Arhin is not alone in placing a renewed emphasis on Trathtional Methcine in the Ghanaian and African contexts. In fact, the World Health Organization (WHO) has noted, “TM [is] one of the surest means to achieve total health coverage of the world’s population” (Sarpong, 2008, p. 6). This is especially true in Ghana where 70 percent of the population use trathtional methcine as its first choice for well-being (Arhin, 2008; Sarpong, 2008).

Research paper thumbnail of Ada Movement Knowledge Production, Questioning National Development

BRILL eBooks, Jan 27, 2020

Research paper thumbnail of Stories and Restorying as Social Movement Learning

BRILL eBooks, Jan 27, 2020

Research paper thumbnail of An unfractured line

Policy Press eBooks, Jun 5, 2019

Research paper thumbnail of Restor(y)ing hope: stories as social movement learning in ada songor salt movement

Education As Change, 2017

Stories are a central component of how we understand ourselves and our societies in our world. Th... more Stories are a central component of how we understand ourselves and our societies in our world. This is especially true in the case of oral cultures. Stories, how they are used, how they are reframed, and how they change over time, are also an important record of learning. Randall (1996) and Kenyon and Randall (1997) have called this process restorying. This article explores how a social movement in Ada, ghana, has been using stories to both learn and share that learning through several phases of struggle over the past six years. This movement aims to defend the 400-year-old communal artisanal salt production practice that is the livelihood of over 60,000 people. Women make up the majority of these practitioners. The aim of this paper is both to reveal the power of these stories for popular education and to explore how in restorying these stories over time the movement reveals the ongoing depth of learning. This paper also discusses how the alliance between the movement and the local community radio contributes to this restorying and learning.

Research paper thumbnail of African Social Movements and Learning

BRILL eBooks, Jan 27, 2020

Research paper thumbnail of Service Learning and Solidarity: Politics, Possibilities and Challenges of Experiential Learning

International volunteering and experiential learning programs provide important opportunities for... more International volunteering and experiential learning programs provide important opportunities for personal and academic growth for students, universities and communities. However, they also have the potential of reinforcing neocolonial frameworks of power and privilege. Furthermore, these programs occur more and more in an academic context where short-term experiences are promoted, and longterm programs abandoned in the wake of neoliberal university policies. This paper is a reflection on the politics, possibilities and challenges of starting a new experiential learning endeavour through the Service Learning Program at St. Francis Xavier (StFX) University from a critical standpoint by exploring tensions and power dynamics of such programs whilst working from a decolonizing and solidarity-based pedagogy of development.

Research paper thumbnail of Indigenous Knowledges, Development and Education

Research paper thumbnail of Moving with the movement: Collaboratively building a participatory action research study of social movement learning in Ada, Ghana

Action Research, Aug 17, 2015

While participatory research methods, especially participatory action research, are a recognized ... more While participatory research methods, especially participatory action research, are a recognized approach to the study of social movement learning, the way in which this participatory relationship is framed and designed has deep implications on the collaborative nature of the research. Studies overly framed and designed by academics, as opposed to collectively designed with movements, run the risk of mining movements for information as opposed to contributing to their goals and learning. This paper describes a co-owned design process, based on established relationships, with a social movement in Ghana where being based in movement-articulations helps the research move with the movement. This co-owned process sets the stage for the emergence of movement embedded knowledge democracy.

Research paper thumbnail of An unfractured line: an academic tale of self-reflective social movement learning in the Nova Scotia anti-fracking movement

Policy Press eBooks, Jun 5, 2019

The chapter shares a series of reflections garnered from being involved in Anti-fracking and subs... more The chapter shares a series of reflections garnered from being involved in Anti-fracking and subsequent social movement organizing in Nova Scotia/Mi’kma’ki, Canada, from 2010 until now. Providing a framework for these reflections is Foley’s notion of social movement learning in struggle as I went from being part of demonstrations, to helping organize them, to working on submissions to an expert panel, to working with the steering committee of Nova Scotia’s anti-fracking coalition. The story of the Nova Scotia anti-fracking movement describes how we were able to build a successful alliance between communities of the Mi’kmaq First Nation and Nova Scotia settlers that pressured government, even through a change in ruling parties, to legislate a ban on fracking. This unfractured movement speaks to the potential to use the original treaties between the Mi’kmaq and the British as a source of unity in popular struggle.

Research paper thumbnail of Translocal Social Movement Learning in the Face of COVID-19: Building Online Solidarity During Lockdowns

Education As Change, Aug 22, 2022

Social movements are at the forefront of fighting for another world as conceptualised through Aru... more Social movements are at the forefront of fighting for another world as conceptualised through Arundhati Roy's portal. COVID-19 and state measures imposed to contend with it have severely impacted not only the activism of movements, but also their capacity to learn. Translocal social movement learning offers one way in which such learning can continue. This article shares reflections from participants involved in a translocal learning engagement between movement members and activist-scholars from Ghana, South Africa and Canada. It provides an important example of the kind of non-hierarchal social movement learning that can happen at a distance, when movements share, learn and support one another.

Research paper thumbnail of Social Movement Learning in Ghana

SensePublishers eBooks, 2011

The “globalization project”(McMichael, 2008, p. 21) is inextricably intertwined with neoliberalis... more The “globalization project”(McMichael, 2008, p. 21) is inextricably intertwined with neoliberalism, and has had a dramatic effect on the people of the Global South. Neoliberal globalization has been devastating for rural populations pushed off their lands in order to ...

Research paper thumbnail of African Social Movement Learning

How social movements learn in struggle, produce knowledge, and provoke public paradigm shifts hav... more How 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.

Research paper thumbnail of Building Bridges from Broken Bones

Research paper thumbnail of Re-imagining Capacity and Collective Change: Experiences from Senegal and Ghana

IDS Bulletin, May 1, 2010

Research paper thumbnail of Learning to Sleep without Perching: Reflections by activist-educators on learning in social action in Ghanaian social movements1

McGill journal of education, Jul 27, 2009

Ce document est protégé par la loi sur le droit d'auteur. L'utilisation des services d'Érudit (y ... more Ce document est protégé par la loi sur le droit d'auteur. L'utilisation des services d'Érudit (y compris la reproduction) est assujettie à sa politique d'utilisation que vous pouvez consulter en ligne.

Research paper thumbnail of The Pedagogy of Creative Dissent

African Social Movement Learning, 2020