Umuthi Ugotshwa Usemanzi as a theory of global citizenship formation in environmental and sustainability education

Global citizenship is frequently invoked in environmental and sustainability education (ESE), yet the field remains comparatively quiet on formation: how global citizenship becomes an enduring identity rather than an assessed competence. This scholarly review (2016-2026) synthesises peer-reviewed work at the intersections of ESE, environmental stewardship/citizenship, indigenous and local knowledge integration and ecological accountability. It argues that the dominant grammar of outcomes and competencies, while useful, can obscure the formative infrastructures through which students come to inhabit responsibility, belonging and obligation at multiple scales. Mobilising the isiZulu proverb Umuthi ugotshwa usemanzi (a tree is bent while it is still wet) as a conceptual lens, the review identifies three recurrent silences shaping global citizenship claims in ESE: (1) temporal silence (formation displaced by late-stage outcomes), (2) epistemic silence (knowledge pluralism treated as content rather than authority) and (3) ecological-ethical silence (citizenship framed without coherence between global responsibility and lived socio-ecological relations). A formation-centred framework is proposed to guide internationally transferable curriculum design, pedagogy and research in ESE.