Mass Intellectuality of the Neoliberal State: Mass Higher Education, Public Professionalism, and State Effects in Chile

A new book by Nicolas Fleet

Palgrave Macmillan, 2021

Palgrave Studies on Global Policy and Critical Futures in Education

ISBN 978-3-030-77192-8

ISBN 978-3-030-77193-5 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-77193-5

From the Publisher:

This book engages with post-Marxist views on the productive and social transformations of post-industrial societies into cognitive capitalism. It provides extensive original analysis on the political roles that intellectual labour assumes in the post-bureaucratic organisation of the neoliberal state. It invigorates debates on state theory, cognitive capitalism, and student movements in Chile and Latin America.

In his book, Nicolas Fleet addresses the political effects of the massification of higher education and intellectual labor in the neoliberal state. Using the case of Chile, the author argues that public professionalism emerges in the mass university system, producing excesses of knowledge which infuse the state with political purpose at many levels. The emergence of the student movement in 2011, then the major social mobilization against the neoliberal state since the restoration of democracy in 1990, provided a clear manifestation of the politicization and ideological divisions of the mass university system. In conditions of mass intellectuality, public professionals mobilize their political affinities and links with society, eventually affecting the direction of state power, even against neoliberal policy. Through several interviews with academics, public professionals, and other documentary and statistical analyses, the book illustrates the different sites of political socialization and the ideological effectiveness of the emergent mass intellectuality of the neoliberal state.

Reviews:

“Fleet’s main contribution is to identify the key role played by a totally unexpected actor: a large mass of highly educated public servants, who are the product of the explosive expansion of education and for decades have also contested the neoliberal state from within.”

—Patricio Silva, Professor of Modern Latin American History, Leiden University, The Netherlands

“This highly original and readable study is going to re-invigorate debates on state theory and enliven current discourses on cognitive capitalism and the knowledge economy.  The author’s insightful investigation of the Chilean university student and secondary school student movements is eye-opening and vitally relevant to the current struggles in Chile and all of Latin America today.”

—Stefano Harney, Honorary Professor, Institute of Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice, University of British Columbia, Canada

“Nicolas Fleet shows how a mass intelligentsia grew out of a segregated education system in the world’s only truly neoliberal state. His masterly account of the bureaucracy, of education and of the clientelistic party system, offers a highly original explanation of the explosions of youth protest that opened the way to an unprecedented national consensus for the refoundation of the state in a Constitutional Assembly.”
—David Lehmann, Emeritus Reader in Social Science and former Director of the Centre of Latin American Studies, University of Cambridge, UK

The Author:

Nicolas Fleet is Dean of Social, Legal and Economic Sciences at the Universidad Católica Silva Henríquez, Chile. He received his PhD in Sociology from the University of Cambridge, UK. His research focuses on political sociology and higher education.

For more information and Table of Contents, see: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-77193-5

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Education, Equality and Human Rights – Mike Cole – Book Launch

Education, Equality and Human Rights

 

 

 

 

 

 

BOOK LAUNCH

Education, Equality and Human Rights: Rights: Issues of Gender, ‘Race’, Sexuality, Disability and Social Class – Edited by Mike Cole

Professor Mike Cole, is a Professor of Education at the University of East London, UK

This event will be held at: The Cass School of Education and Communities, Room RB.G.13, Stratford Campus, University of East London, Water Lane, London, E15 4LZ

On: 31 January 2018, at 17.00-19.00

 

 

The fourth edition of Education, Equality and Human Rights has been fully updated to reflect the economic, political, social and cultural changes in educational and political policy and practice, as austerity continues and in the light of the EU referendum. Written by a carefully selected group of experts, each of the five equality issues of gender, ‘race’, sexuality, disability and social class are covered as areas in their own right as well as in relation to education.

Key issues explored include:

• Human rights, equality and education
• Women and equality, historically and now
• Gender and education perspectives throughout time
• Racism in the UK from the Empire to the present
• Racism and education from imperial times to the May government
• The making and remaking of sexualities
• The challenges surrounding teaching and learning about sexuality in schools
• The struggle for disability equality
• Inclusive education
• Social class, Marxism and socialism
• Social class inequality and education.

With an uncompromising and rigorous analysis of education and human rights and a foreword from Professor Peter McLaren, Education, Equality and Human Rights is an essential resource across a wide range of disciplines and for all those interested in education, social policy and human rights.

 

Mike Cole is Professor of Education at the University of East London, UK.

His latest books are Racism: A Critical Analysis (2016); Critical Race Theory and Education: A Marxist Response, Revised Second Edition (2017), and New Developments in Critical Race Theory and Education: Revisiting Racialized Capitalism and Socialism in Austerity (2017).

 

The Contributors:

Simon Forrest is Professor of Social Sciences in Medicine and Head of the School of Medicine, Pharmacy and Health at Durham University. He has a background in school teaching and research related to young people’s sexual lifestyles, risks, relationships and identities. He has co-authored a book supporting teaching about homosexuality in the context of schools, Talking About Homosexuality in the Secondary School (AVERT, 1997), and has since published numerous papers and other articles in the field of young people’s sexual attitudes and lifestyles. He is Chair of the Board of Trustees at AVERT, a leading global AIDS charity, and contributes to local and national initiatives aiming to support boys and young men.

Jane Kelly taught Art History and Women’s Studies at Kingston University until she retired in 2002. Since then she has been involved in Southwark Day Centre for Asylum Seekers which has three day centres, each open one day a week. In addition, she has recently rejoined the Labour Party.

Alpesh Maisuria is a Senior Lecturer with an expertise in social class and educational policy. His current research is based on the neoliberalisation of education in England, drawing upon Marxism and critical realism to understand these developments as ideologically driven. He also has an interest in Swedish social democracy and communism and education policy. He is also Deputy Editor of the Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies (JCEPS).

Jane Martin is Professor of Social History of Education at the University of Birmingham. Her first book, Women and the Politics of Schooling in Victorian and Edwardian England, won the History of Education Society (UK) Book Prize in 2002. She has published widely in various international journals in the field of gender and education, history of education, sociology of education and women’s history. She is joint editor of the Routledge Progressive Education Series. Her most recent book is Making Socialists: Mary Bridges Adams and the Fight for Knowledge and Power, 1855–1939 (Manchester University Press, 2013). Future publications include Gender and Education in England since 1770: A social history to be published in the Palgrave Macmillan Gender and Women’s History Series in 2018; and a biography of author, teacher and socialist Caroline Benn (1926–2000).

Peter McLaren is Distinguished Professor in Critical Studies, College of Educational Studies, Chapman University, where he serves as Co-Director of the Paulo Freire Democratic Project and International Ambassador for Global Ethics and Social Justice. He is also Honorary Chair Professor at Northeast Normal University, China, where he serves as Honorary Co-Director of the Center for Critical Pedagogy Research. Professor McLaren is the author and editor of 45 books, and his writings have been translated into 30 languages.

Richard Rieser is a disabled teacher, trainer, writer, speaker, campaigner, film maker, and an international advocate/consultant for inclusive education and disability equality in many countries around the world. He runs World of Inclusion Ltd (www.worldofinclusion.com). As a disabled teacher, Richard taught for 25 years in primary, secondary, FE, and lastly as an Advisory Teacher for Inclusion in the London Borough of Hackney. After this he became full-time Director of the charity Disability Equality in Education, which trained over 120,000 education professionals. All Richard’s work is prompted by disability equality, inclusion and the social model of disability. Richard was UKDPC representative at the Ad hoc Committee framing the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. He is author of the only handbook on implementing Article 24: Inclusive Education, for the Commonwealth. He has held many positions, including UK Rep on the European Disability Forum from 2004 to 2012, Chair of the Alliance for Inclusive Education and Vice Chair of Council for Disabled Children for 12 years and on various UK government committees. He is Coordinator of UK Disability History Month (www.ukdhm.org). Recently, World of Inclusion won an award at the Zero Conference, 2016 for a series of anti-disablist bullying films

Education, Equality and Human Rights

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies – Volume 15 Number 3, December 2017

Glenn Rikowski

 

This is the latest issue of Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies. It includes my article Privatisation in Education and Commodity Forms.

 

 

 

 

Volume 15 Number 3 – December 2017

 

Ravi Kumar
Consensualised Reproduction and Fascisation of Society: Critical Pedagogy in Times of Despair

 

Glenn Rikowski
Privatisation in Education and Commodity Forms

 

Mike Cole
‘A bright future’ for ‘something new and highly significant’ or a bit of a damp squib?: (neo-) Marxist reflections on recent theoretical developments in ‘BritCrit’ in the journal Race, Ethnicity and Education

 

Oskar Szwabowski
Paulina Wężniejewska
An (co)autoethnography story about going against the neoliberal didactic machine

 

Sezen Bayhan
Ayşe Caner 
Schools in the Nexus of Neoliberal Urban Transformation and Education Policy Change

 

Chris Holligan
Corporate Schooling and Decorative Metrics: The Iconography of Academy School Chains in England

 

Dhammika Jayawardena 
The “MacBurger”, Non-State Universities and the Changing Landscape of Higher Education in Sri Lanka

 

Steve Hanson
Language, juridical epistemologies and power in the new UK university: Can alternative providers escape?

 

Cecilia Rikap 
The Differentiated Market-University: is commodification equally affecting all universities?

 

Joseph Cunningham
Rhetorical Tension in the Bureaucratic University

 

Fernando Murillo
Ideology, Curriculum & The Self: The psychic rootedness of ideology and resistance in subjectivity

 

Carl Parsons
Kaia-Marie A. Bishop
Book Review: Mike Cole (2016)Racism: a Critical Analysis. London: Pluto Press.

 

 

Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies: http://www.jceps.com

 

***END***

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Glenn Rikowski @ ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Glenn_Rikowski

Ruth Rikowski @ Academia: http://lsbu.academia.edu/RuthRikowski

 

Dave Hill

 

International Conference on Critical Education VIII

ICCE 8

University of East London, Stratford, London, England

25^th – 28^th July 2018

Critical Education and Activism Against Neoliberalism / Authoritarian Neoconservatism in Education, State and Society

The International Conference on Critical Education (ICCE), previously held in Athens (2011, 2012), Ankara (2013), Thessaloniki (2014), Wroclaw, Poland (2015), London (Middlesex University) (2016) and Athens (2017) is a forum for scholars, educators and activists committed to social and economic justice.  The 8th ICCE: Critical Education and Activism Against Neoliberalism/ Authoritarian Neoconservatism in Education, State and Society will take place at University of London (UEL), London, 25-28 July 2018.

At a time of economic crisis, when education is under siege by neoliberal capitalism and by neo-conservatism and aggressive nationalism, when teachers and academics are being proletarianized, youth criminalized, civilised and caring societies being stripped of welfare and benefits and rights, schools and universities turned into commodities, at such a time, critical education, as a theory and as a movement, as praxis, is clearly relevant. International communities of critical educators and activists are working together, and with other movements, to build active resistance to these processes and are engaged in fostering educational and social change leading to a more just, equal and fair society.

The current economic, social, and political crisis, that has been ongoing for 30 years, is manifesting more deeply in education on a global scale. The crisis- part of, and resulting from, dominant neoliberal and neoconservative politics that are implemented and promoted internationally as ‘the only solution’, under the slogan ‘there is no alternative’ (TINA), have substantially redefined the sociopolitical and ideological roles of education. Public education is shrinking. It loses its status as a social right. It is projected as a mere commodity for sale while it becomes less democratic, de-theorised, de-critiqued.

Understanding the causes of the crisis, the particular forms it takes in different countries and the multiple ways in which it influences education, constitute important questions for all those who do not limit their perspectives to the horizon of neoconservative, neoliberal and technocratic dogmas. Moreover, the critical education movement has the responsibility to rethink its views and practices in light of the crisis, and in the light of social, political and educational resistance in different countries – and the paths that this crisis opens for challenging and overthrowing capitalist domination worldwide.

The International Conference on Critical Education (ICCE) – regularly attended by between 300 and 400 participants, provides a vibrant and egalitarian, non-elitist, platform for scholars, educators, activists, students and others interested in critical education and in contesting the current neo-liberal/ neo-conservative/ nationalist hegemony, to come together and engage in a free, democratic and productive dialogue. At this time of crisis when public education is under siege by neoliberalism, neo-conservatism and nationalism, we invite you to submit a proposal and to attend the Conference. We especially welcome new and emerging scholars / scholar-activists.

 

Speakers invited include:

Grant Banfield (Australia)

Dennis Beach (Sweden)

Sara Carpenter (Canada)

Hana Cervinlova (Poland)

Polina Chrysochou (Greece /UK)

Christian Chun (USA)

Alessio d’Angelo (UK)

Sandra Delgado (Canada/ Colombia)

Mustafa Durmus (Turkey)

Agnieszka Dzieminowicz-Bak (Poland)

Gail Edwards (UK)

Ramin Farahmandpur (USA)

Derek Ford (USA)

Nathan Fretwell (UK)

Panayota Gounari (USA)

George Grollios (Greece)

Carly Guest (UK)

Julia Hall (USA)

Dave Hill (UK)

Lee Jerome (UK)

Wei Jin (Peoples Republic of China)

Gianna Katsiampoura (Greece)

Nurcan Korkmaz (Turkey)

Ravi Kumar (India)

Alpesh Mairsuira (UK)

Tristan McCowan (UK)

Gyuri Meszaros (Hungary)

Louise Prendergast (UK)

Lotar Rasinski (Poland)

John Rice (Australia)

Glenn Rikowski (UK)

Leena Robertson (UK)

Juan R. Rodriguez (Spain)

Wayne Ross (Canada)

Rachel Seoighe (UK)

Kostas Skordoulis (Greece)

Spyros Themelis (UK)

Tamas Toth (Hungary/Poland)

Paolo Vittoria (Italy)

Josefine Wagner (Poland)

Terry Wrigley (UK)

Ahmet Yidiz (Turkey)

 

Conference Organisers: Dave Hill (Institute for Education Policy Studies) and Alpesh Maisuria (University of East London)

Contact: dave.hill@ieps.org.uk

 

See the website: http://www.icce2018.wordpress.com/

 

UEL Stratford

 

 

 

 

***END***

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Ruth Rikowski @ Academia: http://lsbu.academia.edu/RuthRikowski

Neoliberalism and Ordoliberalism: One or Two Critiques?

Fat Cat Food

 

STAMP – Centre for the Study of States, Markets & People
School of Business & Law, University of East London, Annual Research Colloquium
On: “Neoliberalism and Ordoliberalism: One or Two Critiques?”

Tuesday 12 December 2017, 14.30pm – 19.30pm.
Venue: USS G.19/20, University of East London, 1 Salway Road, London, E15 1NF

(5 minutes’ walk from Stratford tube station)

Speakers and participants include: Professor Werner Bonefeld (York University), Dr. Gareth Dale (Brunel University), Professor Bülent Gökay (Keele University) Professor Bob Jessop (Lancaster University) and Dr. Mike Wilkinson (London School of Economics)

As the Euro-zone enters its ninth year of crisis and Britain posits itself for a hard Brexit, it is now widely accepted that German/Austrian ordoliberal policy principles — de-politicisation of central bank, deflationary policy and strong state — have long been institutionalised in the EU. But if the ordoliberal public policy in the Euro-zone and beyond manages EU processes, then what are its points of divergence and convergence with Anglo-American neo-liberalism — which some North American scholars identify as “New Constitutionalism”? If neo-liberal financialisation as a form of public policy could not arrest the slow and protracted decline of American Empire since the late 1960s, can German ordoliberalism re-launch the process of European integration, and on what policy basis? Was ordoliberalism a deliberate, post-war, policy plan to dominate Europe’s various state executives, or did it come about structurally and by way of France’s and Italy’s persistence to engage Germany in a currency union in order to control its superior industrial and monetary might? Under what forms of political governance, law and civic consciousness can neo-liberalism and ordoliberalism best operate? Last but not least, do we need one or two comprehensive critiques for these two separable, but not separate, public policies? These are some of the pertinent questions the STAMP Colloquium is proposing to address, launching a new research programme in the fields of global and European history, public policy, constitutional law and international
relations.

For further information about the workshop, please contact: Mr Seun Alele, e-mail: O.Alele@uel.ac.uk

Programme
14.30 – 14.45 Vassilis K. Fouskas (UEL) “Welcome and Opening Comments”
14.45 – 15.15 Gareth Dale (Brunel) “Ordoliberalism as a German Product: Origins, Evolution, Purposes”
15.15 – 15.45 Werner Bonefeld (York) “Stateless Money and State Power: Ordoliberal Insights and Capitalist Organisation”
15.45 – 16.30 Questions & Answers
16.30 – 17.00 Tea/Coffee
17.00 – 17.30 Bülent Gökay (Keele) “One neo-liberalism or many?”
17.30 – 18.00 Mike Wilkinson (LSE) “Authoritarian Liberalism: Exception or Norm?”
18.00 – 18.30 Questions & Answers
18.30 – 18.45 Bob Jessop (Lancaster) via skype “Financialization, Ordoliberalism, Neo-liberalization and the State of Permanent Austerity”
19.00 – 19.30 Conclusions and ideas about how to take this research programme forward. Bob Jessop to be engaged via skype

 

***END***

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Glenn Rikowski @ ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Glenn_Rikowski

Ruth Rikowski @ Academia: http://lsbu.academia.edu/RuthRikowski

Neoliberalism

DARKMATTER

Mors Mystica

DARKMATTER

Announcing the publication of a special issue of Darkmatter Journal, “Reflections on Dispossession: Critical Feminisms” eds. Brenna Bhandar and Davina Bhandar, with contributions from Sara R. Farris, Jonathan Goldberg-Hiller, Alyosha Goldstein, Leticia Sabsay and Rafeef Ziadah.

This collection traces a path for contemporary critiques of neoliberal capitalism and colonial dispossession. The authors show the compelling need for complex strategies and tools to evaluate the interlocking or intersectional practices of dispossession, and their particular effects on racialised, Indigenous, sexualized, and gendered subjects.

 

Darkmatter is an open access journal, and the special issue can be accessed here:

http://www.darkmatter101.org/site/category/issues/14-dispossession/

 

Praise for “Reflections on Dispossession”:

“Crossing centuries, oceans, continents, and disciplines, this ambitious and extraordinary collection shows how the logic of dispossession and its productions of difference reach into a present that avows colorblindness and erases coloniality. In its courtrooms, border checkpoints, intimacies, reform impulses, prisons, refugee camps, and regimes of accumulation, the neoliberal order is shown to draw on and recalibrate histories of gendered colonial oppression as long as they are deep.” – David Roediger (University of Kansas)

 

First Published in http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/special-issue-of-the-journal-darkmatter-reflections-on-dispossession-critical-feminisms-out-now

 

***END***

‘Human Herbs’ – a song by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

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Ruth Rikowski @ Academia: http://lsbu.academia.edu/RuthRikowski

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Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.co.uk/

Ruth Rikowski at Serendipitous Moments: http://ruthrikowskiim.blogspot.co.uk/

The Extreme Centre: How the Neoliberal Project has Reshaped the World

Fat Cat Food

THE EXTREME CENTRE: HOW THE NEOLIBERAL PROJECT HAS RESHAPED THE WORLD

Tuesday, 16 February 2016, 5-7PM

Tariq Ali (writer, filmmaker and editor of New Left Review)

The Extreme Centre: How the Neoliberal Project Has Reshaped the World  

BGLT (SOAS, Brunei Gallery), Bloomsbury, London

Discussant: Dr Feyzi Ismail (SOAS)

Abstract: Since 1989, politics has become a contest to see which politicians can best serve the needs of the market. The result is always the same: a victory for the Extreme Centre. The same catastrophe has taken place in the US, Britain, Continental Europe and Australia. In this urgent and wide-ranging case for the prosecution, Tariq Ali looks at the people and the events that have informed this moment of political suicide: corruption in Westminster; the failures of the EU and NATO; the soft power of the American Empire that dominates the world stage uncontested. Despite this inertia, Ali goes in search of alternative futures, finding promise in the Bolivarian revolutions of Latin America and the edges of Europe. Emerging parties in Scotland, Greece and Spain, formed out of the 2008 crisis, as well as Corbynism in Britain, are offering new hope for democracy.

Tariq Ali has been a leading figure on the international left since the 60s, having engaged in debates against the Vietnam War with leading politicians of the time. He has written extensively on world history and politics; his works include The Obama Syndrome, The Clash of Fundamentalisms and his most recent publication, The Extreme Centre: A Warning. Described by the Observer as an ‘intellectual bomb thrower’ his contributions extend to film and theatre scripts, novels and published conversations, such as with Edward Said. He is a regular broadcaster on BBC Radio and contributes to magazines and newspapers including The Guardian and the London Review of Books.

All welcome, no need to book. Seating is available on a first come, first served, basis so please arrive early to be sure of a seat.

On behalf of the seminar organising committee: Alfredo Saad-Filho, Feyzi Ismail, Jo Tomkinson, Carolina Alves, Lorenza Monaco and Jai Bhatia

Further details of all the seminars are available on the SOAS Development Studies Department website: https://www.soas.ac.uk/development/events/devstudseminars/

First Published in http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/soas-ds-seminar-tariq-ali-on-the-extreme-centre-how-the-neoliberal-project-has-reshaped-the-world

***END***

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Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ Academia: http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski

Ruth Rikowski @ Academia: http://lsbu.academia.edu/RuthRikowski

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.co.uk/

Ruth Rikowski at Serendipitous Moments: http://ruthrikowskiim.blogspot.co.uk/

An Alternative to Neo-Liberal Education – Venue Change

AN ALTERNATIVE TO NEO-LIBERAL EDUCATION – VENUE CHANGE

NOW AT THE MAYDAY ROOMS

Apologies for the short notice but unfortunately it has been necessary to change the venue for the meeting on Saturday 28 November.  This will now be held in the MAYDAY ROOMS, 88 Fleet Street, London EC4Y 1DH, 2.00pm – 4.30pm. 

NEW ANARCHIST RESEARCH GROUP

JOINT MEETING WITH THE SOCIAL SCIENCE CENTRE (LINCOLN)

Saturday 28 November 2015

Mayday Rooms

88 Fleet Street

London, EC4Y 1DH

2.00pm – 4.30pm

The Social Science Centre (SSC) in Lincoln is a self-organised co-operative higher learning provider that is democratic at all levels of its organisation. The scholars who are members of the Centre work and study together whether they are traditionally students or teachers. One of the aims of the Centre is to analyse and dissolve the tensions in the relationships between research and teaching, and students and academics. Set up by academics from the University of Lincoln, the Centre has no relationship with the University, although it is a critique of the formal institution as a dysfunctional neoliberal arrangement in many ways. The SSC aims to ‘reinvent’ the University and transform the scholars’ relationship to knowledge in order to insert their own experiences into theoretical knowledges that aim to emancipate them as active change agents. The SSC engenders provocations, conversations and discussions that enliven the notion that all those who are involved in active knowledge work should become (co-) producers of knowledge. Two of the (student) scholars and an academic from Lincoln will be visiting the Anarchist Research Group to talk about the centre and their experiences studying there.

In this session, we would like to tell you a little about our experiences with the SSC and then invite a discussion on the SSC, self-organised education and the relationships between education, learning, and social change.
The Social Science Centre provides free public higher education in the city of Lincoln and emphasises the collective and collaborative nature of education. The Centre was opened in 2011 by academics and students and Lincoln residents who feel passionately that those wishing to study higher education should not have to take on the burden of debt. There is no fee to pay when joining the Centre, only what you can afford. Free also means freedom to study outside of the current disciplinary structures of higher education around topics and issues that are of direct concern to you and your local community.

Anarchist Research Group Website: http://torrianomeetinghouse.wordpress.com/where-we-are/ 

***END***

‘Human Herbs’ – a song by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

Glenn Rikowski @ Academia: http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski

Ruth Rikowski @ Academia: http://lsbu.academia.edu/RuthRikowski

 

The End of Progressive Hegemony

Hegemony

THE END OF PROGRESSIVE HEGEMONY: REGRESSIVE TURN IN THE PASSIVE REVOLUTIONS OF LATIN AMERICA

Wednesday 2 December 2015

Evening Guest Lecture in the School of Politics and International Relations,

Queen Mary University of London

The End of Progressive Hegemony: Regressive Turn in the Passive Revolutions of Latin America

Massimo Modonesi, Professor of Sociology, UNAM, Mexico City

The experience of the so-called progressive governments in Latin America (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Uruguay and Venezuela) seems to have entered an impasse that some authors have labelled the end of a cycle. Starting from their characterization as passive revolutions we can analyse the current processes of these governments according to a shared, defining feature: the relative loss of hegemony, that is to say of the capacity to construct cross-class consensus. This loss is traceable to a shift from a progressive profile to a more regressive one in these governments and their actions, perceptible as much in new equilibriums in their constituent blocs and social alliances, as in their public policy orientation and relationships to social movements. In the short term horizon, it does not appear that there will be an imminent break with the political-institutional order and a return of the Right, but  there is an observable conservative turn in the region ̵ 1; more perceptible in some countries (Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, and Ecuador) than in others (Venezuela and Bolivia). On the other hand, alongside this emerging context of an offensive by the national and international Right within Latin America, there is also a clear reactivation of protest on the part of popular actors, organizations and movements; they are emphasizing their antagonistic profile once again, against the grain of the subordination they experienced during the progressive cycle of Latin American passive revolutions.

What: Lecture on the present state of progressive governments in Latin America, and the simultaneous reactivation of the Right and popular social movements of the Left.

When: Wednesday 2 December 2015, 18:00-20:00

Where: David Sizer Lecture Theatre (Francis Bancroft), Queen Mary University of London, Mile End Campus

Massimo Modonesi is a Professor of Sociology at the Autonomous National University of Mexico / Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) in Mexico City. He is an editor of arguably the most important sociological journal in Latin America, Observatorio social de América Latina (OSAL), and sits on the editorial board of the leading leftist magazine in Mexico, Memoria. Modonesi is also an authority on the political writings of Antonio Gramsci, and an expert in both contemporary Marxist theory and socio-political movements and the Left in twentieth and twenty-first century Latin America. He is the author of Subalternity, Antagonism, Autonomy (Pluto, 2013), as well as several influential books in Spanish.

Attendance is free of charge, but please register here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/massimo-modonesi-the-end-of-progressive-hegemony-tickets-19634320782

First Published in http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/lecture-at-qmul-december-2-the-end-of-progressive-hegemony-regressive-turn-in-the-passive-revolutions-of-latin-america-massimo-modonesi

***END***

‘Human Herbs’ – a song by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ Academia: http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski

Ruth Rikowski @ Academia: http://lsbu.academia.edu/RuthRikowski

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.co.uk/

Ruth Rikowski at Serendipitous Moments: http://ruthrikowskiim.blogspot.co.uk/

An Alternative to Neo-Liberal Education

Neoliberalism

AN ALTERNATIVE TO NEO-LIBERAL EDUCATION

NEW ANARCHIST RESEARCH GROUP

JOINT MEETING WITH THE SOCIAL SCIENCE CENTRE (LINCOLN)

Saturday 28 November 2015

2.00 pm – 4.30pm

The Torriano Meeting House

99 Torriano Ave

Kentish Town

LONDON, NW5 2RX

The Torriano Meeting House: https://torrianomeetinghouse.wordpress.com/

The Social Science Centre (SSC) in Lincoln is a self-organised co-operative higher learning provider that is democratic at all levels of its organisation. The scholars who are members of the Centre work and study together whether they are traditionally students or teachers. One of the aims of the Centre is to analyse and dissolve the tensions in the relationships between research and teaching, and students and academics. Set up by academics from the University of Lincoln, the Centre has no relationship with the University, although it is a critique of the formal institution as a dysfunctional neoliberal arrangement in many ways. The SSC aims to ‘reinvent’ the University and transform the scholars’ relationship to knowledge in order to insert their own experiences into theoretical knowledges that aim to emancipate them as active change agents. The SSC engenders provocations, conversations and discussions that enliven the notion that all those who are involved in active knowledge work should become (co-) producers of knowledge. Two of the (student) scholars and an academic from Lincoln will be visiting the Anarchist Research Group to talk about the centre and their experiences studying there.

In this session, we would like to tell you a little about our experiences with the SSC and then invite a discussion on the SSC, self-organised education and the relationships between education, learning, and social change.

The Social Science Centre provides free public higher education in the city of Lincoln and emphasises the collective and collaborative nature of education. The Centre was opened in 2011 by academics and students and Lincoln residents who feel passionately that those wishing to study higher education should not have to take on the burden of debt. There is no fee to pay when joining the Centre, only what you can afford. Free also means freedom to study outside of the current disciplinary structures of higher education around topics and issues that are of direct concern to you and your local community.

ANARCHIST RESEARCH GROUP: Our meetings are friendly and informal. They are usually held on the fourth Saturday each month, at the Torriano Meeting House in Kentish town, 99 Torriano Avenue, London NW5 2RX between 2.00pm and 4.30 pm
Directions: From Kentish Town tube station walk up Leighton Road, and turn left into Torriano Avenue.

We take a collection after each meeting to cover the cost of the venue.

Website: http://torrianomeetinghouse.wordpress.com/where-we-are/ 

Education Crisis

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‘Human Herbs’ – a song by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ Academia: http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski

Ruth Rikowski @ Academia: http://lsbu.academia.edu/RuthRikowski

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.co.uk/

Ruth Rikowski at Serendipitous Moments: http://ruthrikowskiim.blogspot.co.uk/

Historical Materialism London Conference 2015 – Pre-Registration

I must work harder!

HISTORICAL MATERIALISM LONDON CONFERENCE 2015 – PRE-REGISTRATION

Reminder: Only 4 days left to pre-register for the HM 2015 London Conference*

* NB: remember please that this year’s conference is at the SOAS Russell Square site, not Vernon Square as last year!
The Old is Dying and the New Cannot Be Born: States, Strategies, Socialisms

Twelfth Annual Historical Materialism Conference

School of Oriental and African Studies, Central London, 5-8 November 2015
As austerity tightens its grip around the throats of the peoples of Europe, but also rears its ugly head in Brazil and elsewhere, we are forced to recognize that it is not the mere by-product of the ‘economic crisis’ but a political project in its own right, one whose aim is to deepen and consolidate the most uncompromising forms of neoliberal capitalism. It cannot be said that this project has hitherto been met with passivity, even if social movements of resistance have been mostly far from strong enough to halt its advance. Yet something is perhaps beginning to change, namely the emergence of counter-austerity projects that have pitched themselves at a political – even electoral or governmental – level. With all their weaknesses, hesitations and contradictions, the chinks of light in Southern Europe, amongst others, should compel Marxists to pose a whole series of ‘old’ strategic and theoretical problems in new garbs and new configurations, ​but perhaps also to retire some of our dear fetishes and shibboleths, and to experiment with forms and strategies adequate to our present. Among the themes that have returned to the agenda are: the relationship of movements and parties of the radical Left to states and governments; the need for a political response to how class power is enmeshed with forms of domination that have gender, race, imperialism or sexuality as their axes; possible « socialist » futures and the ‘transitional’ mediations implied by them; the guiding dichotomies of left thought: reform and revolution, revolution and revolt, state and movement, parties classes and masses; the link between the limits to capital and the limits of politics.

Over a hundred panels on a wide variety of topics and plenary sessions on: Race, Mobility and the State; Austerity and Socialist Strategy in Southern Europe; Social Reproduction Theory; Marxism and Religion; Workers’ Struggles in South Africa.

Provisional Programme: http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/conferences/annual12/ProvProgramme.pdf/view
Conference Poster for download: http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/conferences/annual12/conference-poster

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‘Human Herbs’ – a song by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ Academia: http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski

Ruth Rikowski @ Academia: http://lsbu.academia.edu/RuthRikowski

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.co.uk/

Ruth Rikowski at Serendipitous Moments: http://ruthrikowskiim.blogspot.co.uk/

The Mont Pelerin Plague? Revisiting and Rethinking Neoliberalism

Neoliberalism

THE MONT PELERIN PLAGUE? REVISITING AND RETHINKING NEOLIBERALISM

Call for Papers

Association of American Geographers Conference

2016

San Francisco, 29 March – 2 April 2016

 

The Mont Pelerin Plague? Revisiting and Rethinking Neoliberalism

Organizers

Kean Birch (York University, Canada)

Simon Springer (University of Victoria, Canada)

 

Outline

From its initial conceptualization in Mont Pelerin in 1947, neoliberalism has now become a ubiquitous term. In geography, and elsewhere, it is used to theorize everything from the development of ecosystem services through urban regeneration to financialization (Springer, Birch & MacLeavy 2016). Across a range of disciplines it is conceptualized in various ways as, for example, a geographical process; a form of governmentality; the restoration of elite class power; a discourse; a political project of institutional change; a set of transformative ideas; a development policy paradigm; a radical political slogan; an epistemic community or thought collective; an economic ideology or doctrine; a particular form of violence; and so on. Such variety and diversity in intellectual analysis (i.e. an explanatory framework) and substantive topic (i.e. a thing to explain) have produced a glut of concepts, theories, and analyses. While this medley might be seen as a necessary – and fruitful – outcome of such a hybrid and heterogeneous process, it also has the potential side-effect of leaving us more confused than enlightened. It is increasingly difficult, on the one hand, to parse or synthesize this intellectual (yet often contradictory) abundance and, on the other hand, to apply it to policy or practical issues facing diverse communities, societies, organizations and individuals around the world. It also risk becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy, where despite our hesitancies, we come to believe that there really is no alternative. A body of literature is emerging that is critical of current conceptions and understandings of neoliberalism, highlighting these issues (e.g. Boas & Gans-Morse 2009; Barnett 2009; Weller and O’Neill 2014; Flew 2014; Birch 2015; Venugopal 2015).

 

Questions

It is time to take stock of what we are left with by adopting neoliberalism as a key spanner in our analytical toolkit. Consequently, the aim of this session is to revisit and rethink neoliberalism as an abstract concept and as an empirical object. We invite contributors to critically revisit dominant conceptions of neoliberalism, to rethink how we use neoliberalism as an analytical and methodological framework, and to offer new ideas about how to productively (re)conceptualize neoliberalism. Below we outline some broad questions that contributors might like to consider engaging, although others are welcome:

1. How conceptually useful has neoliberalism been in geography?
2. How has the concept of neoliberalism evolved over the last two decades?
3. How are we plagued by neoliberalism, or are we plagued by its ongoing prioritization?
4. Does neoliberalism represent the most useful or critical way of understanding the current state of the world?
5. Does neoliberalism need updating as a critical concept in ways that take us beyond hybridity and variegation?
6. What is missing from debates on neoliberalism in contemporary geographical scholarship?
7. What makes neoliberalism such a popular analytical framework in geography?
8. Are there alternative ways to conceptualize neoliberalism?
9. Are we in need of finding alternative conceptions that break with the language of ‘neoliberalism’ altogether?
10. What might new visions beyond neoliberalism yield in terms of our collective political future?

 

Abstract Submission

If you would like to participate in the session, please submit an abstract (250 words max) by 19 October 2015 to bothkean@yorku.ca and springer@uvic.ca. If you would like to participate in other ways (e.g. discussant) then please feel free to contact us as well.

Please note: once you have submitted an abstract to us, you will also need to register AND submit an abstract on the AAG website. The AAG abstract deadline is 29 October 2015 to: http://www.aag.org/cs/http://www.aag.org/cs/annualmeeting/how_to_submit_an_abstract

 

See: http://www.politicalgeography.org/2015/09/24/cfp-aag-2016-the-mont-pelerin-plague-revisiting-and-rethinking-neoliberalism/

 

Neoliberalism

***END***

‘Human Herbs’ – a song by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ Academia: http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski

Ruth Rikowski @ Academia: http://lsbu.academia.edu/RuthRikowski

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.co.uk/

Ruth Rikowski at Serendipitous Moments: http://ruthrikowskiim.blogspot.co.uk/