Campaigning and Development Education in the Era of Diffused Knowledge Arenas

• Main Author: Son Gyoh
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Centre for Global Education 2016-04-01
• Series: Policy and Practice: A Development Education Review
• Subjects: Public Perception; Public Deliberation; Issue Publics; Counter-publics; Knowledge Catalyst
• Online Access: https://www.developmenteducationreview.com/issue/issue-22/campaigning-and-development-education-era-diffused-knowledge-arenas
• ISSN: 2053-4272; 2053-4272

This article revives the debate about campaigning and development education (DE), and challenges a widely held view that their distinctive approaches to public engagement are polar opposites, and their methodologies mutually exclusive. It highlights an increasing convergence of the wider objectives of the two endeavours, by arguing how DE and non-governmental organisation (NGO) campaigning target the same constituency. The article is inspired by the findings of a recently submitted doctoral thesis that explored the knowledge dimension of NGO campaigning, and the way virtual public arenas are used to sustain a network of social actors that generate and multiply narratives about development and global poverty. The article develops a central argument made in the thesis on the complementary role NGO campaigning offers in addressing an inherent tension in DE around its political dimensions and the autonomy of the learning public. The opportunity for NGO campaigners to use their networks as public arenas for meaning making is argued to mitigate the issues of indoctrination associated with approaches to DE. The article makes particular reference to shifts in the way NGOs describe their campaigning as based on knowledge, understanding and values, and how these functions align with the foundations of DE to build public support and competency for action against global inequality (Bourn, 2008). The article further analyses the way the communication channels adopted in both endeavours to engage and mobilise autonomous actors have been harmonised by the digital information and communication era. Such momentous changes in the configuration of their audiences, the public share, and the resources for public mobilisation makes it imperative to review the long held positions that ignore shifts in the dynamics DE and NGO campaigning operate in, as well as the changing environment and constitution of social actors they target.