Creating a Pro-Love, Decolonial, Anti-Oppressive Social Field as Transformative Learning Praxis

Transformative learning theory and practice most often focuses on the experience of the individual learner. Conversely, the field of (just) sustainability transitions is primarily focused on different levels of social experiences. In this article, and drawing on rich, qualitative data from a transformative learning journey with practitioners of urban climate, equity, and decolonization challenges in Canadian cities, we bring the ‘inside out’ and ‘outside in’ of transformation together using a promising framework – social fields. Taking a decidedly pro-love, anti-oppressive, and decolonial paradigmatic approach to this learning journey, and through dialogic sensemaking as co-authors and learning designers, we describe what we have called emergent qualities of our social field – ease, gifts, sanctuary, radicalness, and persistent practice. This article offers a rich, experiential, multi-voiced description of this individual-to-societal level pro-love, decolonial, anti-oppressive social field for educators interested in transformation of deeply complex challenges.