Citizens educating themselves: D’Elia, L. (2009). Citizens educating themselves: The case of...
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Transcript of Citizens educating themselves: D’Elia, L. (2009). Citizens educating themselves: The case of...
Citizens educating themselves:
D’Elia, L. (2009). Citizens educating themselves: The case of Argentina in the post-economic collapse. In Ali A. Abdi & Dip Kapoor (Eds.), Global Perspectives on Adult Education (pp. 207-220). NY: Palgrave-Macmillan.
The case of Argentina in the post-economic collapse
AcknowledgementThanks to the Global Education Network -
Dr Lynette Shultz & Dr Ali Abdi
My work and publications on Argentina’s educational initiatives have been possible thanks to the encouragement and “persistence” of Dr Ali Abdi.
.• A review of the literature reaffirmed that
research and visions related to Adult Basic Learning and Education in the South are dominated by the North, by international agencies and by English-speaking reviewers, often ignoring or dismissing research produced in the South, especially if it is written in languages other than English. (Torres, 2004)
plan • Post-Military post-collapse conditions
leading to
• formation of Argentinean “crisis” new movement
• autonomous ways of adult and collective education to resist dependency
• Recent events
NO CONFIDENCE IN THE OLD SYSTEM
Argentina, the “grain supplier of the world” after WWII and once considered the most stable social systems
• In 2001, its government defaulted on $US100 billion debt, the largest sovereign debt default in history (Feldstein, 2002)
• The currency and the banking system collapsed• Argentinean government sequestered all the savings
of the middle and poor class • wiped out almost completely its middle class
“With all of their institutions in crisis, hundreds of thousands of Argentineans went back to democracy's first principles” (Klein, 2003).
– popular assemblies*– trading clubs (barter), – comm.health clinics– community kitchens– take over of ~200
abandoned factories
• autonomous & independent of any organized socio-political structure...
“piqueteros”, food rioting groupings, factory workers, or massive neighbourhood assemblies,
• radically opposed past and current socio-political experiments (Armelino, 2002; Klein, 2003; Lodola, 2003)
• developed unprecedented relations with social agency &
powers in the world (D’Elia, 2005)
• resisted assimilation by government, political parties, established social and labor movements, and even NGOs.
teaching & learning inventions
Two observations from contemporary adult education :
• REPRODUCTIVE EDUCATION
• CAPITALISM PROFITING FROM EDUCATIONBourgeois class has “the power to profit from educational knowledge...” (Murphy, 1988)
However, the autonomous movement in Argentina appears to escape both
Pair up!
• Why do you think corporations could not profit from the education of the Argentineans organized in the new autonomous movement?
power to profit from education proportional to
• Assimilation into institutional, labour and political structures
• Incorporation into production machinery
However,
– Many asambleistas were not entering the labour force but established their own micro-enterprises
– Some piquetero groups working on the state-plan program, (no dependency on private capitalists) (Auyero, 2001)
– Many factory take overs >> running as cooperatives (no capitalistic approach) (Klein, 2003).
Uncompromised informal education
• Popular educators group – Área de Educación Popular del Movimiento Barrios
de Pie –Neighborhoods Standing Up
• literacy and post-literacy• elementary and high school completion• workshops history and political education • Workshops on trade work, popular assemblies’ participatory
techniques; • travelling workshops on “Free Trade of the Americas”,
Foreign Debt, among others (Movimiento Barrios de Pie, 2005).
LITERACY PROGRAMS Non formal education – Paulo Freire’s methodology
Argentinean popular education:• conscious raising – action committed• free access • bottom-top approach
• communal, non-governmental (D’Elia, 2005; Barrios de Pie, 2002)
• “Yo Si Puedo” a literacy audiovisual program for adults provided to the Argentinean Barrios de Pie
– stemming from “Instituto de Pedagogos de Latinoamérica y el Caribe” and the UMMEP(Un Mundo Mejor es Posible)
EDUCATION by some NGOs•Caritas, and others•Green Peace & other internat. organizations
recent information• Neighborhood Assembly in
Gualeguaychu city
Buenos Aires
Took over a huge environmental challengeby self-educating, researching, and takingcommunal activism against the building of one of the biggest pulp mill in the world:“Botnia”, on the Uruguay River banks
• Issues of power symmetry
European Union-LA Summit
http://www.noalaspapeleras.com.ar/noalaspapeleras.asp
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08ysmal2_CY&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.noalaspapeleras.com.ar%2Fvideos.asp&feature=player_embedded
Michael Hardt said that what makes the imperial hegemony vulnerable is not the anti-imperialism but the self-management
by autonomous groups like the ones in Argentina, Mexico (Chiapas), Brazil (landless movement), and others.
To me, the collective education of the new autonomous movement, at least, is self-sustaining its own survival by rebelling against
the rules of the market that have profited from and deceived an entire generation in Argentina
Thank you
Thank you• Notes in:
www.education.ualberta.ca/staff/ldelia