An-Najah Holds the 'Teaching Palestine: Pedagogical Praxis and the Indivisibility of Justice Conference' in South Africa
An-Najah National University, represented by Dr. Saida Affouneh, Dean of the Faculty of Educational Sciences and Teacher Training at An-Najah in cooperation with South African institutions of higher learning, including the Afro-Middle East Center in Johannesburg and two South African universities held the 'Teaching Palestine: Pedagogical Praxis and the Indivisibility of Justice Conference' in South Africa during the period March 18- March 19, 2019.
The conference focused on bringing together South African and international participants to contextualize the praxis of Palestine as a justice issue in its multiple manifestations and nuanced dialectics. The conference also examined the tensions and contradictions of the academy and the community dialectic, bringing up questions of social movements and intellectual inquiry.
Dr. Affouneh presented a research paper titled: " linking Classroom Education to Palestine Realities of Living Under Occupation " through which she shed light on the status of the Palestinian education system under the Israeli occupation.
The conference was attended by more than 50 speakers, including academics, scholars, advocates and human rights activists from around the world.
At the end of the conference, a select group of Teaching Palestine conference participants spent five days of formal and informal interaction with communities, activists, religious leaders, worker’s, trade unions, students in townships and campuses in learning South Africa’s resistance and struggle culture. Also, the conference participants visited geographies of South African anti-apartheid resistance to deepen the sense of solidarities.