top of page

Holistic Praxis Workshops: Section Introduction

A Holistic Do-it-Together Tool kit.

The early collective praxis journey trails in this pedagogy-research​

image_edited.png
image_edited.png

OVERVIEW

On this page you will find links to all the workshops that were generated through this research. You can use these workshops in your own practice and adapt them to your specific contexts and needs. By sharing these workshop stories, it is hoped that people using popular education and social practice art can see how a project evolved over time, using a creative and eco-embodied praxis. It is important to remember that there is no one fixed way to do these practices, rather it is about applying the principals of the practice to a context, making use of the tools already available and making new tools as required, and being reflexive and reflexive of your practice, being transparent about your political position and agenda.

The workshops are in four main categories:

 

1. Outreach workshops were used to gather a co-researching community together and gave to give would be participants information about the project by experiencing collaborative process in a short session.

​

2. Core co-researching workshops: A smaller group of co-researchers formed from the outreach workshops and participated in four core workshops. These workshops narrowed down the focus of inquiry for people to decide what action they wanted to take.

​

3. Co-Researcher Action Workshops:

The third category of workshops are those which occurred as a result of the core practice.

 

4. Other Lead Researcher Workshops

A fourth category includes workshops that occurred before the outreach phase, and include workshops designed by the lead researcher but not actioned out with a co-researching group due to operational issues within the PhD.

image.png

PRAXIS

Praxis is the underlying learning for action process tool that was used throughout this project.

 

to keep the practice moving forward and orientated to political action.

 

Freire (1970 describes praxis as 'cycles of collective reflection & dialogue on lived experience of struggle to Inform collective political action' and contends that without this reflection we are engaged in mindless activism. Praxis is essentially a peer-to-peer learning process.  What are our collective struggles and what do we do about it. For example, housing, Mental health, biodiversity loss, climate change and isolation were some concerns in this project.

 

Recurring cycles of  

Typically, praxis occurs in groups in speaking circles in which people verbally talk to each other. This is not inclusive for everyone. In this project more creative, experiential, embodied and nature connected tools were used in combination with praxis to inform our actions. In other words, a creative eco-embodied praxis approach. Other practices where then interwoven with the praxis. We can do praxis over long- or short-time spans e.g. in one hour, over a weekend, 3 years, or a lifetime. Simple questions to stimulate praxis could be, why are you here? What do you want to do, and why? And what did you do, and why? Below is a praxis trail which illustrates the praxis journey in this research. How workshops informed other workshops and actions and generated new tools and practice insights.

Below are some visual mappings of how praxis occurred in this project, the collective journey it took us on.

Like, change is not made alone: 

Co-Researcher KOB

Praxis Workshop Structure: Problem Posing Questions around 'What we make, and why'? to inform actions to being about alternatives forms of production and consumptions which support flourishing

​

  1. Participants meet and greet and check-in.

  2. Individual reflection on the first three problem posing questions through playful and critical engagement with making tools: What we make and why? and 'who benefits, who suffers? 'What else is possible, what's the alternative?'

  3. People share back insights from activity. to the group

  4. Tea

  5. Group discusses the key themes found in the reflections shared earlier.

  6. Individual reflection on the question What would you make together to support life to flourish?

  7. Share-back and form breakout discussion groups based on potential action themes.

  8. Individual workshop evaluation and share back. Benefits (usefulness), challenge's of the process. Next steps.

​

This could be a 2 hour workshop or could be expanded into a 2 day workshop depending on the context. It could also be used as a scaffolded but flexible structure for a much longer project.

image.png

Outreach Workshop Posters

bottom of page