This chapter introduces our collaborative project, born from workshops that brought Danish and Brazilian researchers together in Belo Horizonte (2015) and in Copenhagen (2017). It has evolved further through years of dialogic exchanges and shared theoretical exploration of research on learning from the perspective of the learners and from marginalized positions and communities. As the chapters of the book took shape, they created the scope of the book project focused on urban life and struggles concerning marginality, conflicts, and inequalities. We chose to work together in part to explore how our national, theoretical, and methodological traditions both inspire and limit the research we do, as we seek answers to questions about “what learning is for” in struggles for social change and social justice. The introduction highlights how the collaborative process itself became a form of learning, shaping our theoretical development in dialogue with each other and with the ethnographic studies.

This chapter examines the modes of learning associated with a practice deeply embedded in Brazilian society: football (soccer). Recognizing its unique position in the country – as part of everyday life, with minimal formal instruction, varying levels of participation, and strong historical, cultural, and identity dimensions. The ethnographic analysis focuses on the participation contexts of young footballers in the periphery of a Brazilian metropolis (Belo Horizonte, MG). Drawing on the perspective of learning as inherently embedded in social practices (Lave 2019), the chapter explores both the formation of young footballers and the historical development of the practice itself. By focusing the analysis on learning, it articulates the concepts of access and participation, seeking to trace the dynamics of football practices while acknowledging the foundational complexity that characterizes them. The aim is to foreground the discussion on how each participant is constituted, simultaneously and through the very relationships to which they contribute.

Why do individuals embedded in organizations act corruptly? Functionalist and economic approaches to corruption have had limited success in explaining why individuals choose corruption where there are strong institutional constraints, including monitoring systems, high costs, and strong punishments. The persistence of corruption despite such constraints has prompted researchers to consider more seriously the individual psychological drivers of corruption. This chapter reviews evidence on the psychology of corruption, finding that power, ethical leadership, personal gain and self-control, loss aversion and risk acceptance, rationalization, moral ambiguity and disengagement, learning, and emotion all influence an individual’s propensity to act corruptly within an organization. Anti-corruption measures that constrain these drivers include transparency, participation, and accountability measures that reduce incentives and opportunities for corruption. Organizations can also implement ethical measures like codes of conduct, anti-corruption training, attend to cultural dynamics, and use nudging interventions to incentivize clean behavior.

Prisons were emblematic of early modern state formation, expanding in tandem with the growing impingement of state officers and the legal system on everyday life. Chapter 1 focuses on the institutional development of prisons, the officers who ran them and their place within the officeholding state. It surveys the variety of prisons in England, the product of gradual and uneven development that gave rise to institutions that operated within a series of overlapping jurisdictions and that struggled with a rapidly expanding carceral population. This decentralised carceral infrastructure – so typical of the early modern state – also posed challenges for prison governance and regulation, opening the system to claims of corruption and profiteering. Thus, this chapter explores the place of the gaoler within the wider dynamics of early modern officeholding authority and the disciplinary maintenance of economic and social stability. It argues that as unpopular state agents, gaolers posed challenges to political legitimacy, in extreme cases generating hostility towards state and legal authority.

Remarkable forms of self-governance and collective identity developed within these carceral communities, another means of dealing with the deprivations of captivity. They encouraged solidarity and mutual support, especially among poorer prisoners. And yet, ironically, they could enable greater social control within the prison. Chapter 4 analyses the corporations – headed by elected or customarily selected stewards – through which prisoners managed life inside. They provided the foundations for practical and symbolic collective identities that prisoners also communicated to the wider world. Based around the administration of charity, this culture of self-governance gave rise to customs and practices by which prisoners collectively negotiated their time in prison. Yet although potentially empowering, the formal extension of officeholding to prisoners also represented the wider diffusion of early modern state power into prison populations and an attempt to exert greater social control over them. Indeed, this chapter challenges our view of early modern self-government – often understood as a mechanism of local autonomy and negotiation with higher powers – by discussing an extreme example in which participants could be actively involved in constricting their own liberty.

Co-management is in essence about collaboration and participation. In this chapter, definitions are provided for each, with recurring themes identified from definitions of collaboration and collaborative governance. The chapter explores these key themes in relation to the ‘what, who, how and why’ of collaboration, moving to distinguish between cooperation, coordination and collaboration, the nature of leadership in collaboration and the relevance of scale. The chapter then moves on to review the meaning and practice of participation, reflecting on the ‘why, who, how and when’ of participation. Challenges to meaningful participation are identified, noting critique of the adoption of a mechanical, technical approach rather than recognising the political and empowering potential of participation.

The United Nations and its bodies have ‘opened up’ to a broad range of non-state actors over the last three decades, including for-profit actors and their representatives. The shift is reflected in the UN’s sustainable development goals and the Global Compact, emphasizing public-private partnerships; in greater participation of corporations at treaty conferences; in trade group roles as observers at organizations; and in multi-stakeholder projects. Yet international organizations have generally not developed robust responses to legitimacy concerns about businesses becoming closely involved in lawmaking and governance projects. These concerns focus on interest group capture, entrenchment of western economic elites, creeping privatization, and erasure of public deliberation. Indeed, the participation of for-profit actors and their representatives has largely been a ‘silent revolution’: under-heralded and under-examined. This chapter argues that responses to for-profit roles in the work of international organizations tend to express one of two logics, not yet reconciled. The logic of ‘representation’ values public authority, interest representation, transparency, and accountability. The logic of ‘expedience’ values pragmatic problem-solving, efficiency, knowledge, and progress. Each has different priorities and blind spots, encompasses an array of theoretical approaches, and would push the international system in a different direction.

This chapter explores the construction of Twa as global development subjects within the Rwandan context and asks how they position themselves within that landscape, formed by the intersection of the global development narrative and Rwanda’s unity and reconciliation agenda. This chapter interrogates the state’s development narrative in the context of the global development discourse and examines its ability to offer a believable and accessible vision of progress. The Twa in our study push back against the de-politicising effect of development and its processes, whereby the emphasis is placed on the individual and their mind-set. However, they do so not to emphasise their ethnic apartness but to assert their right to the attributes of Rwandanness, notably land. Their answer is thus not to refuse to participate in the modern Rwanda but actively to seek it by demanding equal care.

The early years of a child’s life represent a critical period of development where identities form, relationships flourish and foundations for lifelong learning are established. Within this formative landscape, inclusion emerges not only as an educational approach but as a fundamental human right and ethical imperative. In Australian early childhood contexts, inclusive practice exists at the intersection of policy, pedagogy and personal commitment. This chapter establishes the conceptual underpinnings of inclusion and inclusive practice and invites the reader to consider inclusion not as an additional responsibility, but as the very essence of quality early childhood education and care. By creating environments where every child experiences belonging, participation and growth, we honour each individual child, while also laying the groundwork for a more equitable society.

Human rights were not absent in the 1972 Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment (Stockholm Conference). The Stockholm Conference’s preparatory works, the participants’ statements, and the 1972 Stockholm Declaration on the Human Environment all exhibit elements of a human rights-based approach. However, the legal arrangements on chemicals and wastes concluded in the decades that followed did not articulate principles of transparency, participation, and accountability for the realization of the right of every person to a non-toxic environment. Despite the progress that these agreements signify, they have not reversed the grave toxification of the planet and its people, nor have they achieved the global goals on chemicals and wastes management. Moving forward, international environmental law should change trajectory and embrace the human rights-based approach already apparent in the principles of the Stockholm Conference in order to secure the full realization of the human right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment.

The article starts from the consideration of the important role played by the rural landscape of the Roman age in the formation of the contemporary Italian landscape and illustrates some cases of valorization of Roman villas also for the development of new forms of cultural tourism and cultural economy

This chapter explains how the oil sector’s citizen mobilization ends up being commandeered by registered lobbyists, who use their manufactured publics to speak to politicians and regulators. Examining the case of the Keystone XL pipeline in Nebraska, the chapter explores how state government developed an array of forums for hearing citizen sentiment about the proposed project. The chapter shows that although pro- pipeline groups attracted a robust base of support, they leveraged their memberships to allow oil lobbyists to speak on behalf of citizens in these new government forums. By claiming to represent a public, pro-pipeline groups’ paid lobbyists were afforded a right to speak in meetings, hearings, and online spaces intended for everyday people. This, the chapter argues, is a main strategic driver behind the formation of many contemporary pro-oil groups.