WEAVING ALTERNATIVES
#19:
A periodical of the
Global
Tapestry of
Alternatives
LEARNING
AND EDUCATION
II
APRIL
2026
The
contents of
this
periodical are
also available
online on this webpage.
Dear
Readers,
We
are delighted
to share with
you the 19th
edition of the GTA Periodical.
In this
edition, we
continue to
engage with
learning and
education
drawing from
the work of
the Learning
and Education
Thematic Group
within the
GTA.
This
periodical
comes out as
we face the
dismantling of
global systems
of human
rights,
governance and
international
law. These are
taking place
through
violent
geopolitical
games that are
destroying
lives,
livelihoods
and lands from
Cuba to
Venezuela,
Gaza to Iran
and beyond. As
we see the
collapse of
the Master’s
house as Audre
Lourde names
it, the
hypocrisy
beneath the
unequal
integration of
countries and
communities
into a
racialized
international
order is being
laid bare.
Political
struggles are
being
mobilized
across
localities,
and learning
and
(political)
education are
core to these
projects. We
need to
reimagine
learning as
inseparable
from the work
of liberation.
Learning, in
this sense, is
not an
institutional
activity but
an emancipatory
practice, something
that unfolds
in the
everyday, in
relationships,
in the ways
communities
sustain and
transform
themselves. As
learners and
teachers, I
would like to
believe that
we are also
groovetenders
as Wangũi
wa Kamonji describes
in her
beautiful
poem. As noted
in the recent
GTA webinar “Learning
as Freedom“,
this is what
“weaving”
seeks to do:
connect
diverse
knowledges,
practices and
struggles into
a living
fabric of
alternatives.
The issue
presents the
key messages
emerging from
that
encounter.
In
this edition
of the
periodical
which is the
second to
focus on
learning and
education, we
offer a
collection of
pieces that
speak to this
topic. Chaitali
Chaudhari offers
a reflection
on how
initiatives
such as
Alternatives Decentres
and
Alternatives
Courses
emerging from
the living
landscape of
Vikalp Sangam,
a GTA weaver,
are an effort
to listen,
connect and
learn from
grounded
practices.
Similarly
approaching
learning from
praxis, Xochitl
Levya Solano reflects
on the
learning that
moves and
mobilises,
inspired by
her
participation
in the
encounter of
women from
Abya Yala to
Kurdistan at
the conference
organized by
the Network
Women Weaving
the Future
held in
Bogotá,
Colombia this
year.
Similarly, in
his
intervention, Carlos
Tornel shares
his learning
from visiting
the Yes to
Yasuni
movement and
presents the
Radical
Pedagogy of
Yasuní. He
notes that the
pedagogy of
Yasuní begins
by reversing
the dominant
question. It
is not only
about “how to
exit
extractivism,”
but about what
kind of world
we want to
sustain once
the extractive
frontier
closes, and
with what
institutions,
care, and
economies we
make it
possible.
Thinking
beyond the
human
experience, Salvador
Vásquez Banda
and Beatriz
von Saenger Hernández
propose the
creation of
the
post-humanist
research and
experimentation
assemblage, remanso a
space to learn
to relate in a
different way,
to learn with
the non-human,
unlearning the
logics of
domination.
However it is
not only from
the grassroots
and praxis
that learning
happens and in
our last
article, The
Alternatives
Project which
works within
university
education
offers a
dialogue on
how
transformative
educational
alternatives
can be
facilitated.
Finally we are
gifted by
another poem
on
Generational
reckonings by Wangũi
wa Kamonji reminding
us all that we
do not walk
this path
alone.
Whilst
the pieces
above focus on
learning and
education,
these
practices are
inseparable
from the wider
work of
world-building.
From this
issue we are
introducing a
section that
captures the
essence of
some of the
conversations
and gatherings
which you may
have missed
attending.
GTA, in its
own way, has
been creating
and engaging
in spaces that
weave together
ideas,
experiences,
and practices.
At its core is
an effort to
hold open a
pluriversal
political
space in a
time of deep
uncertainty;
to recover
languages of
dignity and
struggle that
have been
buried, and to
bring diverse
practices of
autonomy,
care,
territorial
rootedness,
and collective
imagination
into
conversation
without
flattening
their
differences.
We
leave this
periodical
with you as
both
reflection and
invitation; as
many within
the GTA
prepare to
gather in
Indonesia for
the second
in-person
Assembly of
the Global
Tapestry of
Alternatives
from 11–18
April 2026. It
is in such
spaces that we
continue to
learn
together, and
to build, step
by step, the
worlds we know
are possible.
We invite you
to walk with
us.
In
case, you
would like to
get this
periodical
directly into
your inbox
then join our mailing list and
keep an eye on
the future events.
In solidarity,
Guest
editor: Vasna
Ramasar
Editorial
team: Madhuresh
Kumar, Beatriz
von Sanger and
Franco
Augusto.
Periodical
Articles
groovetenders
Wangui
wa Kamnoji
“Imagine
winning, this
is your sacred
task.”
My
sacred task:
to know the
wound, so I
can know it
healed,
Keep
reading ->
Reimagining Learning Through Alternatives
Decentres
Chaitali
Chaudhari
We
are in a
moment where
many of the
assumptions
that shaped
our societies
are beginning
to come
undone.
Ecological
limits are
becoming
impossible to
ignore;
inequalities
are
sharpening;
democratic
spaces are
shrinking; and
there is a
growing sense
that the ways
we have
organised our
economies,
institutions
and knowledge
systems are no
longer
tenable. These
are not
isolated
disruptions
but part of a
deeper,
structural
crisis in how
we have come
to live and
learn.
Keep
reading ->
Lessons from Kurdistan to Abya Yala and vice
versa. “The
Twenty-First
Century is the
Century of
Women…”
Xochitl
Leyva Solano
This
article is
about what we
learned from
participating
in the women's
conference
held in
Bogotá,
Colombia.
Women's
movements have
been our
school. There,
we learn and
unlearn
collectively
and together.
This text
begins by
discussing the
global context
and then
addresses what
we did and why
in these times
of violence,
horror, and
war, but also
of embodied
and situated
hope.
Keep
reading ->
Yasunizing Territories (or the Radical Pedagogy
of the Yasuní)
Carlos
Tornel
From
November 29 to
December 5, I
had the honor
of
accompanying a
large
delegation of
organizations
and experts to
Yasuní
National Park
in Ecuador.
The visit to
Block 16
allowed us to
confirm how,
two years
after the
Popular
Consultation
in which this
country voted
Yes for
Yasuní, and
after a second
consultation
in 2025 that
ratified the
current
Constitution
with its
plurinational
character and
its
recognition of
the rights of
nature, the
Ecuadorian
government has
deliberately
ignored its
obligation to
halt oil
extraction and
to dismantle,
repair, and
provide
redress to the
territories
affected in
Block 43,
known as
Yasuní–ITT.
Keep
reading ->
Evoking the non-human: the seminar as an
ecotone for
more-than-human
learning
Beatriz
von Saenger
Hernández and
Salvador
Vásquez Banda
Our
research and
experimentation
practice has
focused on
reading
circles,
in-person
workshops,
conference
organization,
dérives, and
seminars; we
have tried to
reflect on the
sensibilities
that emerge in
an
(un)expected
world, and
that we evoke
toward
more-than-human
worlds . The
International
Seminar on
Post-Humanist
Art and
Research
“Evoking the
Non-Human” was
a gesture that
began as a
pause and has
become a
territory of
shared
knowledge that
preserves
more-than-human
archives. So
far, we have
launched two
editions, one
in 2024 and
another in
2025, with the
need to open
up a
time-space
amid
contemporary
turbulence, in
which 18
artists and
researchers
from six Latin
American
countries have
shared
concerns,
affections,
and resonances
of
relationships
situated with
the non-human
in their
territories.
This essay is
born out of
that process.
Keep
reading ->
Amid the Polycrisis, How can we Facilitate
Educational
Alternatives
for Societal
Transformation?
The
Alternatives
Project (TAP)
The
coauthors of
the present
article are
all members of
The
Alternatives
Project (TAP).
Founded in
2019, TAP is a
diverse,
transnational
collective of
progressive
academics,
union members,
civil society
activists, and
social
movement
participants
working on
creating a
global
critical voice
focused on
education and
societal
transformation.
We see
societal
transformation
as an
essential
response to
the global
polycrisis
manifested by
the
convergence of
poverty,
inequality,
climate
breakdown,
pandemics,
rampant
violence, war,
and democratic
erosion, all
driven by
structures of
capitalism,
racism,
patriarchy,
ableism and
militarism.
Keep
reading ->
generational reckonings
Wangui
wa Kamonji
let
me step into
the ruins of
your dreams
alongside
you,
Keep
reading ->
Event Reports
Taken
together, GTA
conversations,
presentations
and
interventions
in allied
spaces reveal
something
central to its
work: trying
to hold open a
pluriversal
political
space in a
time of
collapse, to
recover
languages of
dignity and
struggle that
dominant
systems have
buried, and to
bring
scattered
practices of
autonomy,
care,
territorial
rootedness,
and collective
dreaming into
a shared
conversation
without
flattening
their
differences.
Full
Editorial
Introduction
to the Event
Reports
Section
available here
->
Solidarity
and Wellbeing
Economy in
Conversation
Crisis
surrounds us
from all
sides, climate
breakdown,
obscene
inequality,
deepening
violence and
exhaustion. In
this context,
to discuss
solidarity,
wellbeing and
economy is
more necessary
than ever. So,
on March 26,
GTA Solidarity
Economy
Thematic Group
and the
Wellbeing
Economy
Alliance
organised a
conversation
between the
two concepts,
starting with
the simple
question: are
solidarity
economy and
wellbeing
economy the
same?
Keep
reading ->
Learning in Freedom:
Weaving
Knowledge,
Unlearning
Power
Our minds
and
imaginations
are shackled
by dominant
neo-liberal
education
systems
reducing
learning to
skills,
productivity,
and market
alignment. In
response, for
years, a
different
conversation
has also been
taking shape
across
movements and
communities.
One that
shifts the
question from
what do we
learn? to
something far
more
fundamental:
how do we
learn, and
with whom? The
session
“Learning in
Freedom:
Building a
Tapestry of
Radical
Alternatives”,
held as part
of the
Re-imagining
Education
Conference5.0,
brought
together
practitioners,
activists, and
thinkers from
across the
Global
Tapestry of
Alternatives
(GTA) to
explore
precisely this
terrain.
Keep
reading ->
Reclaiming Words,
Reclaiming
Worlds - The
Dictionary of
Radical
Alternatives
In a moment
marked not
only by
ecological
collapse and
political
fragmentation,
but by a
deeper erosion
of meaning
itself, GTA’s
Dictionary of
Radical
Alternatives
launch event
was an
invitation to
rethink the
very language
through which
we understand
the world, and
to
collectively
reclaim the
words that
shape it.
Keep
reading ->
Rethinking the world
with Iván
Illich and
Gustavo Esteva
The
webinar,
organised by
the Global
Tapestry of
Alternatives
along with the
Acervus
Project and
CEDI in
Oaxaca,
unfolded as
both a
commemorative
and
forward-looking
space. Framed
around the
commemoration
of Ivan
Illich’s
centenary, it
brought
together
reflections on
his work
alongside
Gustavo
Esteva, also
commemorating
90 years of
his birth and
situating both
within
contemporary
crises and
struggles.
Keep
reading ->
Updates from our
Weavers
The
Global
Tapestry of
Alternatives
is a “network
of networks”.
Each of those
networks acts
in different
parts of the
planet by
identifying
and connecting
Alternatives.
They are the
Weavers. In
the following
section, our
Weavers, the
networks that
currently
weaves it,
from India,
South-East
Asia,
Colombia, and
Mexico shares
updates from
their recent
activities and
actions.
Full
Weavers’
report
available
here->
Vikalp Sangam (India)
Over the
past few
months, the
Vikalp Sangam
process has
continued to
move across
regions and
themes,
bringing
together
diverse
practices and
reflections on
alternatives.
These are part
of ongoing
efforts to
deepen
conversations
around
well-being,
justice,
ecology,
culture, and
self-governance,
while staying
rooted in
people’s lived
realities.
Crianza Mutua México
At Crianza
Mutua México,
the past
couple of
months,
especially
February and
March, have
been a period
of looking
inward while
also preparing
ourselves for
what lies
ahead. We have
been trying to
better
understand who
we are as a
collective and
how we hold
our work
together. As
part of this,
we put
together a
detailed
directory of
all those who
are part of
this process;
collectives,
organisations,
movements and
networks. This
itself became
a collective
exercise. A
small group
gathered the
messages that
each
collective had
written and
requested
images, while
another group
worked on
bringing all
of this into a
visual form.
What has
emerged from
this process
are materials
that we will
carry with us
to Indonesia
for the
Assembly in
April.
MASSA
Over the
past months,
MASSA has been
moving through
a quieter
phase in terms
of collective
planning, as
preparations
for the
upcoming
strategy
meeting in
Malaysia. At
the same time,
members
continue to be
engaged in
field-based
work across
different
territories,
sustaining the
grounded and
relational
processes that
shape the
network.
In
parallel,
UPCIDS
Alternative
Development is
co-organizing
the International
Study
Conference on
Autonomous
Social Science
and
Alternative
Development,
in
collaboration
with faculty
members and
scholars from
Institut
Pertanian
Bogor (IPB)
University.
The conference
will take
place in
Bogor,
Indonesia,
from May 21 to
23, and is
envisioned as
a space to
deepen
dialogues
around
autonomous
knowledge
production and
alternative
development
pathways.
Updates
from our
Endorsers
An Endorser is an organization, collective or thematic
network that
publicly
expresses its
support to the
GTA process,
and is aligned
to its vision
and values. Endorsers are invited by, or when self-invited, endorsed
by, the
Facilitation
Team, and then
approved by
the Assembly.
Learn
more about
Endorsers
May First Movement Technology
May First
Movement
Technology
continues to
deepen its
work at a time
when the
politics of
technology
have become
sharper and
more urgent.
For over two
decades, May
First has been
building
internet
infrastructure
rooted in
collaboration,
autonomy, and
movement
needs. Today,
that work is
taking on new
significance
as Big Tech
companies are
increasingly
entangled in
systems of
surveillance,
militarisation, and control.
Keep
reading ->
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