The gut as teacher. Learning from our bodies

Abstract: This paper reports on a short course for working class people, in Cape Town, South Africa. It outlines how a ‘gut pedagogy’, that is, a practice of teaching through the body that takes the digestive system as ‘teacher’, is the starting point for ‘reading the world’. The journey of food as life and energy-giving substances from the world, through the body, back into the world, illustrates how systems are entangled with each other. The gut pedagogy is deliberately centred within a part of the body that mediates between inside and outside, yet is rarely spoken about. The practice is rooted firmly within feminist popular education that re-connects what has been separated – body and mind, humans and more-than-humans, the gut and the brain. Feminist practice respects and surfaces different ways of knowing, both rational and gut instinct. The paper shows that we can learn from our bodies, if we listen: about health, about the interconnectedness of all life, about the need ...

Object Details

• Location: Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Frankfurt am Main
• Extent: Online-Ressource
• Language: Englisch
• Notes: In: European journal for Research on the Education and Learning of Adults 15 (2024) 3, S. 317-329 ; ISSN: 2000-7426 ; ISSN: 2000-7426 ; (DE-600)2578802-4

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Erziehung, Schul- und Bildungswesen

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (where): Frankfurt
• (who): DIPF Leibniz Institut für Bildungsforschung und Bildungsinformation
• (when): 2024
• Creator: Von Kotze, Astrid

Further information

• DOI: 10.25656/01:31926
• URN: urn:nbn:de:0111-pedocs-319267
• Rights: Open Access; Der Zugriff auf das Objekt ist unbeschränkt möglich.
• Last update: 15.08.2025, 7:26 AM CEST