Holistic Education for Sustainable Development in Hong Kong: A Critical Re-articulation of the Hong Kong Story Centering the Intersection Between Decoloniality, Identity, and Plurality

Abstract

This study builds on two premises. First, education reflects social norms, beliefs, and values; it can reinforce or challenge them. Second, sustainable development is a concept that needs to be decolonized and contextualized for a place and the people to pursue it in a transformative way. With these two ideas in mind, this study incorporates themes and frameworks from Hong Kong cultural studies to explore potential insights on alternative approaches to education for sustainable development (ESD). I first propose the notion of “sustainability as identity” in holistic ESD, positing education must acknowledge learners as “whole” beings and holistic ESD thus refers to an education that allows learners to explore the dynamic process where self and the broader environment are co-participating in mutually sustaining relationships, constantly redefining and experimenting what humanity means within the web of life. Having elaborated on how Hong Kong has been economically, socially, and environmentally unsustainable, and that the dominant ESD approach in Hong Kong might not effectively address the city’s unsustainability, I turn to three local initiatives for insights into alternative approaches to ESD. Not only do they firmly embrace the notion of “sustainability as identity” in holistic ESD, but their stories and experiences enrich my initial proposition by clearly articulating how ESD can be transformative: thoughtful activity curation to help participants cultivate temporal, spatial, rational, and emotional autonomies as part of the decolonization, reconciliation, and transformation process. The alternative manifestations of globalism, localism, in-betweenness and hybridity, and Chineseness also inform us how the essence of holistic ESD — “criticality,” “decoloniality,” “agency,” “plurality,” and “transformation” — can interact and be tied to identities in a non-essentializing, liberating, and transformative way in a life-based paradigm. Ultimately, holistic ESD asks who we want to be, what our purpose of life is, how we want to live it out, and what that looks like in relation to all life forms in both human and more-than-human worlds. The three cases this study focuses on effectively demonstrate how embodying sustainability as identity, pursuing decolonization, and cultivating autonomy and plurality can guide us in addressing these questions and help us take a step closer to a more just and equitable future.