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 ~200abandoned 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