IN THEORY PART

Embodied emergent learning starts from recognising that we are part of the cycle and breaking the subject-object dichotomy; this is rooted in the key feminist value of reflexivity. In the traditional outcome-output method, you don’t see yourselves as a part of it. In Emergent Learning, on the contrary, the team recognises that both the people we work with and ourselves are change agents. This requires us to work reflexively, deepen self-awareness to see our positions clearly in grant-making practice and processes, reflect in real time, interrogate our privileges and shift how we use them.

The next section will briefly explain how EL is weaved into the organisation’s life.

Sometimes learning can happen in the moment of a single process or day, or in a longer-term, ongoing process. The majority of the UAF A&P team have been part of growing and creating this approach to learning as an ongoing practice; the tools with which to facilitate it, including keeping values at the centre, have been part of the process from the beginning.

To use EL for MEAL, facilitation is indispensable. This is because, to make emergence visible to the team on an ongoing basis, there is no set templates or easy answers; dedicated people in the team need to commit to the practice of constant research, development and innovations.