July 2020 - GTA-PeDAGoG - lists.ourproject.org

About the Non-Profit Educational Social Networking Website (From Yuxin Hou-Honorary Member of ICCA Consortium)
by Yuxin Hou 04 Jul '20

04 Jul '20

Dear All: Hope this email finds all of you well. Thanks for inviting me to "GTA-PeDAGoG" mailing list. I am an Honorary member of the ICCA Consortium. It was my great honor to complete the both English summary and Chinese version of “Analysis on ICCAs in the Region of Xinjiang” some years ago. They are in the following links below. I received my PhD in Anthropology in 2012. Now, I am engaged in teaching and research at College of Staten Island of the City University of New York. https://www.iccaconsortium.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/ICCAs-in-Xinjiang… https://www.iccaconsortium.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/ICCAs-in-Xinjiang… I built a website https://www.pedagogism.com This is a nonprofit social networking website for educators, students, parents and general public to share their pedagogies and concerns on education. It aims to promote overall educational success for all and serve the public interests. On this website, two of the forums categories that I create are “Education for Sustainable Development Forums” and “Indigenous Education Forums”. It aims to raise public awareness of the importance of education for sustainable development and indigenous education, and also to encourage public participation in the debate on this topic, thereby promoting sustainable development and indigenous cultures, natural rights from an educational perspective. Under the “Indigenous Education Forums”, I have also created " Indigenous and Community Conserved Areas (ICCAs) Forum" to make ICCAs and its importance more widely known. As a scholar of Anthropology and Sociology, I also pay close attention to the research of Indigenous People. I have been committed to promoting the economic, cultural and social development research of the indigenous peoples. In the study, I found that not only do indigenous students face many challenges in their study, but also the whole education system lacks relevant courses on aboriginal culture, such as teaching in aboriginal languages, teaching on aboriginal cultural heritage, history and tradition, etc. The lack of this kind of education has further exacerbated the general public’s lack of understanding of aboriginal culture. According to relevant research, every 14 days an aboriginal language disappears from the earth, which is not only the death of language but also the end of culture. We lack a common platform for communication, so on the website I have set up “Indigenous Education “Forms. One of the important purposes is to arouse public attention to the history, language, culture and nature protection of indigenous people by participating online forums or group discussions, at the same time, it is also aimed at promoting the education department to fully integrate indigenous education into different stages of education in order to achieve the goal of protecting the indigenous culture from the public basis. With the progress of human civilization, anthropocentrism is continuously destroying the sustainable development of mankind. This kind of destructive behavior includes excessive consumption of natural and animal resources, social inequality, improper waste management, global poverty, etc. Although many scholars, government agencies, non-profit organizations and other agencies have invested a lot of energy to study the coping strategies or formulate relevant policies, the effect is not as we wish. What are the underlying reasons behind this? The lack of sustainable education in our modern education system is an important reason, and sustainable education should run through every stage of education. It should have the same status as basic courses and become a compulsory subject in education. This is an important reason for this website to set up “Education for Sustainable Development” forums. It is hoped that through active discussions of the general public, the all-round development of sustainable education will be promoted. I think the “Education for Sustainable Development Forums” and “Indigenous Education Forums” is important for promoting sustainability and the protection of the cultural and natural rights of indigenous people. It would be very important to get more people involved. This website is easy to use and you are able to create unlimited social groups and forum discussions, comment as well as submit post. The functions include Member Profile, Social Groups, Forum Discussion, Private Messaging, Private Community, User Invites, Network Search, Activity Feeds, Album and Media, Events, Notifications, Activity Privacy Options and more. Welcome to use the two forums on this website as the platform to promote the development of sustainable and indigenous education. In the meantime, if you think there are some topics worth setting up as new forums category or subforums, thanks for letting me know and I would like to discuss it with you. I found “PeDaGoG” is a very important initiative. Do you want me to set up a Forum under the “Education For Sustainable Development” Forums” or a new Forum category called "PeDaGoG Forums". For the latter, it can include more sub-forums under the "PeDaGoG Forums". If it is the latter, please let me know the "Subforums" titles that you want. I think this can be a great base for the "PeDaGoG" group to discuss online. Through it, more people across the world will get to know "PeDaGoG" as well. I am looking forward to hearing from your ideas. For the website, please visit https://www.pedagogism.com About me, please visit https://www.yuxinhou.com If you have any issues with viewing the website or other questions, thanks for letting me know. Best, Yuxin Hou ———————————————————————————————— ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: <gta-pedagog-request(a)lists.ourproject.org> Date: Mon, Jun 29, 2020 at 6:40 PM Subject: Welcome to the "GTA-PeDAGoG" mailing list To: <yuxinhou82(a)gmail.com> Welcome to the GTA-PeDAGoG(a)lists.ourproject.org mailing list! PeDAGoG (Post-Development Academic-Activist Global Group) is a global network of academics and academic-activists interested in post-development, radical alternatives, and related themes, initiated in early 2020. The main idea is to share existing course curricula, materials, methods/pedagogy, and approaches; propose new ones; coordinate programmes across different geographies and cultures; and be able to offer learning experiences to people in various parts of the world, especially the global south. And through all this, contribute to the movements for radical, systemic transformation. We are collecting course materials, individual self-introductions, and links to related initiatives at a shared doc accessible at https://pad.globaltapestryofalternatives.org/pedagog. To post to this list, send your message to: gta-pedagog(a)lists.ourproject.org General information about the mailing list is at: http://lists.ourproject.org/mailman/listinfo/gta-pedagog If you ever want to unsubscribe or change your options (eg, switch to or from digest mode, change your password, etc.), visit your subscription page at: http://lists.ourproject.org/mailman/options/gta-pedagog/yuxinhou82%40gmail.… You can also make such adjustments via email by sending a message to: GTA-PeDAGoG-request(a)lists.ourproject.org with the word `help' in the subject or body (don't include the quotes), and you will get back a message with instructions. You must know your password to change your options (including changing the password, itself) or to unsubscribe without confirmation. It is: hihoawve Normally, Mailman will remind you of your lists.ourproject.org mailing list passwords once every month, although you can disable this if you prefer. This reminder will also include instructions on how to unsubscribe or change your account options. There is also a button on your options page that will email your current password to you. ᐧ

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New Master's Program in Political Ecology and Alternatives to Development - online and in Spanish
by Miriam Lang 03 Jul '20

03 Jul '20

[Apologies for cross-posting] Dear colleagues and companions, I have the great pleasure to inform you that in October of this year, the Andean University Simón Bolívar, Ecuador will initiate a new Master’s Program in Political Ecology and Alternatives to Development, in an online mode and in Spanish language. The online application period will open on July 6th and last until 7th of August 2020. This postgraduate program was designed to give account of the important debates about political ecology and alternatives to development that, among others, have marked critical thinking in Latin America in the last decades; but also to offer a space to discuss the latest dynamics of global capitalism and its geopolitical, geoepistemic and geoeconomic implications. Moreover, it seeks to contribute to the debate on the civilizational crisis in which we find ourselves and possible strategies to face it, from a Global South perspective and in a horizon of multidimensional transformation, which takes the intersections between the different relations of domination that structure our societies into account. The master's degree was originally designed as a face-to-face program that included elements conducive to inter-epistemic dialogue such as field trips, intercultural meetings, etc., which in this first cohort will not be possible to implement in this way, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the totally uncertain situation it generates in Ecuador in particular, and in Latin America in general. However, we will make efforts not to lose these dimensions that are constitutive of the program in the virtual modality. It is planned to resume the face-to-face modality from October 2021, with the second generation of students, if the conditions allow for it. On the other hand, the online modality and the discounts offered by the university, of 60% in tuition, as well as the possibility of scholarships, will facilitate having applicants from all over the continent and thus underline the international character of the master's degree, a fact that which will undoubtedly enrich the debates. On Monday, July 13, we will have an opening event / virtual presentation, in collaboration with the Working Group on Political Ecologies from Abya Yala of CLACSO, in which the most important dimensions of the master’s program will be presented and doubts of eventual applicants may also be resolved (see below and attached). The link for inscriptions to this event is here: https://www.uasb.edu.ec/web/guest/contenido?presentacion-la-maestria-en-eco… I am attaching the brochure that contains all the information such as study plan, teaching staff, application modalities, etc., and an image for social networks. I invite you to share this information among your Spanish-speaking networks and people who might be interested. In a time of crisis for higher education in Ecuador, it is essential to count on your collaboration in the dissemination of this innovative program, for which I thank you in advance. I am looking forward to our first virtual meeting on July 8th! Regards, Miriam [Presentación la maestría en Ecología Política y Alternativas al Desarrollo] [Firma---Miriam-Lang correo 2020]

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Funding query
by Britt Baatjes 03 Jul '20

03 Jul '20

Greetings to all My name is Britt Baatjes and I am very pleased to be part of this group. I live in Port Elizabeth, Eastern Cape, South Africa. I work in adult and community education - I teach, do research, and materials development mainly booklets in ‘plain language’. A few of us are starting a non-formal programme to do with the ecological crisis as part of a new Centre for Alternative Education for Social Action (for children, youth and adults). The programme intends to pursue, provide and demonstrate alternative *education for social action* through participatory action and popular educational practices. The programme conceptualises and implements social actions based on collective and critical engagements with communities about the socio-economic problems experienced as understood from an analysis of the ecological crisis. I was wondering if anyone in this group can suggest organisations who fund such programmes? Please message me at brittbaatjes(a)gmail.com Many Thanks Britt Baatjes -- The truth is that many things on which your future health and prosperity depend are in dire jeopardy: climate stability, the resilience and productivity of natural systems, the beauty of the natural world, and biological diversity. It is worth noting that this is not the work of ignorant people. It is, rather, largely the result of work by people with BAs, BSs, LLBs, MBAs, and PhDs. (Orr, 1991)

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How can marginalised communities continue learning in times of Covid?
by NEUSIEDL Christoph Andreas 02 Jul '20

02 Jul '20

Dear all, Ever since the Corona pandemic has forced schools, colleges and universities to temporarily close, there has been much talk about how to ensure continuous learning for students. While there is a lot to say about how this again conflates (mainstream) 'education' (school, college, academia) with 'learning,' erroneously assuming that the latter stops magically and automatically once we step outside the boundaries of educational institutions, I want to focus your attention on another, related aspect: how can we ensure that marginalised communities and less privileged people are able to continue their learning? For middle class students, the physical classroom has just shifted to the virtual one and classroom lectures are being replaced with online monologues, with even less relevance for students and their current lives, instead of seeing it as a chance to learn with families and communities and about families and communities. For less privileged people however, the effort (however misguided in first place) to provide them education has completely stopped as they have no access to technology, resources etc. Instead, it seems that it is widely assumed that for marginalised communities, the bare survival during the pandemic is all that counts, while other things such as education and learning are not seen as relevant anymore during this time. That's why we at Project DEFY have started a new programme called FLITE - Families Learning Together, which is a state-of-the-art low-tech, telephonic programme based on discussion, exploring, learning and creating together with families from the communities we work with. To find out more about the programme, please have a look at this website where we pitched our idea, although we did not get selected in the end 😉: https://challenges.openideo.com/challenge/covid-reimagine-learning-challeng… Which brings me to the final part of my email - are there any other suggestions, either building on the FLITE programme or completely new ideas, how we can ensure that learning for the less privileged doesn't stop in times of Covid? What initiatives that actually reach marginalised communities can we take, and how can they go beyond the typical classroom-based experience irrelevant for most of people's lives and address their actual interests, needs and ambitions? Best and take care, Christoph Latest Publications: The Ontological Politics of (In-)Equality: A new research approach for post-development, Third World Quarterly, (2019): https://bit.ly/2YaFHU0 The Deep Marketisation of Development in Bangladesh, Third World Quarterly, (2017), 38 (7): http://ow.ly/OjWW305Jkua

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