Education as a Tool for Existence: The Pedagogy of Hope in Palestine with Saida Affouneh, An Najah National University

Education as a Tool for Existence: The Pedagogy of Hope in Palestine

with Professor Saida Affouneh, An Najah National University

When: 3 Feb, 3-4:30PM

Where: GSRC, Arts C / Zoom

In times of crisis, education is often not considered a priority. This talk reframes education in Palestine as something more fundamental: a tool for existence. Drawing on the concept of the pedagogy of hope, the presentation explores how teaching and learning function not only as mechanisms of knowledge transmission and transformation, but also as practices through which individuals and communities assert dignity, justice, rights, and continuity under conditions of existential threat.

Grounded in lived educational experiences from Palestine, the talk examines how hope is enacted pedagogically through everyday practices and through learners’ and teachers’ narratives, rather than being treated as an abstract or aspirational ideal. It argues that in contexts of occupation, displacement, and educide, pedagogy becomes a site of resistance and survival, where learning sustains social memory, identity, and collective action. A new theory of hope will be argued in this presentation.

The talk also presents a proposed model for education in crisis contexts that integrates online and offline modalities with trauma-informed pedagogy. Informed by the principles of hope and sumud(steadfastness), this model seeks to sustain the right to education while responding to the lived realities of learners and educators under an ongoing crisis.

Co-organised by CIE and MENACS. 

Centre for International Education (Sussex Centre of Excellence)

cie@sussex.ac.uk / www.sussex.ac.uk/cie / CIE/MAIED LinkedIn