Overview of the REFA Festival 2020

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic the world is in a period of crisis, but in many parts of the world the upheaval preceded the pandemic itself, which has been a mirror reflecting the failures of our political and socio-economic systems. We are forced now more than ever before to question long-held beliefs about what economics is and its role in shaping the world with a focus on questions of racial, gender and economic disparities and the climate crisis.

The 2020 Virtual REFA Festival is themed: “practical action towards a pluralist economics curriculum”.

It is organised as interactive workshops in four concurrent streams. The opening plenary webinar is on Thursday 1 October 2020, with the interactive workshops, to be held on Friday 2 October and Saturday 3 October 2020.

The main idea for this year's Festival is for students, academics and civil society (drawing as well from international experiences) to learn and share practical steps for making the economics curriculum more pluralist.

This will be done by focusing on four major themes (i.e. the streams) that matter to economic thinking and policy today:

• gender in economics;

• the natural environment in economics;

• labour and work in economics; and

• economic inequality

The four streams will be about sharing lessons learnt, tools, resources, best practices to improve formal and informal teaching and learning in our local context. These activities will be organised into the following major sessions within the streams: 1. mainstream vs. alternative approaches; 2. pedagogy, teaching methods and assessment; 3. Content and resources; 4. Bringing about institutional change.

The sessions will happen online through Zoom, with an early afternoon session (12 pm – 1:30 pm SAST) and late afternoon session (2:30 pm – 4 pm SAST) over Friday and Saturday.

We have arranged for a few thought provoking films to be screened between the 1-3 October for participants to watch. These details are shared on the Films Tab.

Previous REFA Festivals