Local epistemologies in understanding social justice

While contemporary research has showcased numerous studies on the transformative themes of equity, inclusiveness, access, identity and social justice in education contexts, these studies have been predominantly framed, explored and understood through ‘Western’ understandings, which have often failed to sufficiently problematise these themes in the settings of developing or underdeveloped countries, such as those in the Asia Pacific region. This has necessitated research that recognises the relevance of alternative understandings and one, in part, that makes reference to a wide range of contextual and cultural perspectives available in the literature from the Asia Pacific region. Education’s connection to social justice is inevitable – because of how it produces learners’ social and cultural identities in an increasingly multicultural milieu. Education is a rich setting in which the spatio-temporal dimensions of social justice issues are enacted on a daily basis. This chapter is a response to the need for recognition of and movement towards understandings that reference the wide range of contextual and cultural perspectives available in the Asia Pacific region in relation to edu¬cational enactments of social justice.