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This paper is based on a notion of learning that understands the use and production of knowledge as part and parcel of daily experiences and livelihood activities within the framework of collectivity and power, and of theories of social structure and identity. Such a notion is clearly not concerned with the most effective, efficient way of transmitting information and testing competencies. Rather, it asks questions about the link between action and learning, and about the values and purpose of putting knowledge to work in order to build a broader base for and sense of collective life beyond mere survival. The paper investigates the learning involved in community-based actions such as a campaign for women’s safety, a struggle for access to clean water, a dispute over land and housing. Such actions are construction sites of learning, that is, moments of mobilising and creating epistemological, social and political knowledge and ways of knowing. Such stories raise the question whether the histories of collective struggles contain the seeds of the kind of working knowledge that we need in order to build a sustainable and happy environment/lifeworld. For adult educators, critical investigation of society as a site of struggle is a crucial way of learning about social consciousness, values and beliefs of ordinary people. An understanding of the forces underlying the work of social action and change must be the basis of solidarity and support for all those who align themselves with such struggles and who want to enhance them with a creative vision and flights of the imagination towards alternatives.