From Capacity Building to Mutual Learning: Reconfiguring Knowledge Hierarchies in Humanitarian Partnerships

This article offers insights into partnerships that support refugee teachers to adapt and sustain teaching and learning despite multiple compounding obstacles spurred by political and economic crises, disaster, and COVID-19. Drawing from a 3-year study of Syria refugee education in Lebanon (2018-21), I focus on one dimension of partnership that emerged from a dataset comprising 58 interviews and 31 site visits and observations of partnership activities-the principle of mutual learning. Through multidirectional knowledge sharing and a relinquishing of epistemic authority, partners navigated new obstacles presented by the pandemic and sustained education and professional support to Syria refugee teachers. The findings have implications for understanding and addressing critiques of refugee education related to knowledge-power asymmetries, demanding a shift in orientation from capacity building to mutual learning. The article offers empirical evidence of partnership practices that reconfigure knowledge hierarchies, disrupting Northern claims to epistemic authority in education in emergencies.