Edito 

There is something rather dizzying about writing the editorial for a magazine that did not even exist a few months ago. The dizziness of giving shape to a conviction that had, in fact, existed for a long time and was simply seeking to find its place.

A conviction that has developed gradually, over several years of working with young people and focusing on their ability to make a difference in the world, as part of global citizenship education within the university-based NGO Louvain Coopération. These years have transformed my practices and gradually led to a broader reflection on how, as an organisation, we produce and transmit knowledge, on the roles we assign to those who possess it, and on the stance from which we choose to act. This reflection has, in turn, led Louvain Coopération to shift its approach: to make more room for the knowledge and voices stemming from the experiences of those with whom it works, to learn from this knowledge, and to see itself as much as an organisation dedicated to listening and fostering connections as one focused on knowledge transfer.

Gradually, our practices have also evolved: producing as much as sharing, opening up more spaces for reflection and creativity, circulating knowledge without confining it to a ‘North’ or a ‘South’, breaking down barriers between approaches, and giving depth to issues that our usual formats sometimes only allow us to touch upon. This is how this shift in perspective has gradually taken hold within the institution. Louvain Coopération has chosen to make this a core aspect of its work, to give it a genuine place and to champion it collectively. From this movement, a new department was born: ALL, the Agency and Learning Lab, situated at the intersection of worlds that cross paths without always truly meeting – the academic, activist, voluntary and artistic spheres.

ALL was born out of this desire to shift the boundaries separating spaces that produce knowledge, experiences and creations, but which sometimes struggle to break free from their own codes, hierarchies and constraints.

ALL is not intended to remain a single location. What is explored, experimented with and created here should be able to circulate, so as to make room for forms of knowledge that all too often remain on the margins, to learn from those who embody them, and to make listening not merely a preliminary step to transmission, but a fundamental approach that shapes our action. We have brought these forms together under a single umbrella: C·ALL, the contributions of ALL.

C·ALL – the journal , the first issue of which you are opening today, aims to inhabit this in-between space. To allow knowledge, experiences and practices to meet, engage with one another, and sometimes clash. And to see what this friction makes possible. C·ALL is also, quite literally, a call. A call to circulate experiences, concepts, narratives and creations. Not to separate too hastily what is thought from what is lived, what is analysed from what is felt, what is sought from what is created. The challenge lies in the conditions we create – or fail to create – for listening.

Perhaps this is where the ambition of the C·ALL Journal lies: to create a space where an experience can generate knowledge without ceasing to be an experience. Where creation is not merely an illustration of thought. Where research accepts being shifted by what it encounters. Where different forms of knowledge can engage with one another without any one of them having the power, from the outset, to define the others.

This first issue will find every reader wherever they are: in recognition, in questioning, in discomfort. Perhaps in all three at once.

The shaking of certain certainties is not a threat; perhaps this is where it all begins.

Enjoy the read.

Fiona Nziza, on behalf of the ALL team – Louvain Responsible Cooperation at the Agency and Learning Lab