[PeDAGoG] Open Discussion and Updates (July 2020)

[Julien-François Gerber]

Dear everyone,
I am very grateful to all for the wonderful exchange of ideas and
experiences. Thanks to Ashish, Brandon, Callie, George, Mohan, Rajeswari,
Shrishtee, Vandana and everyone! My name is Julien-François and I teach in
the Netherlands, mostly to students from the so-called Global South. Before
that I lived in Bhutan and India. What is to be transmitted? by whom and to
whom? how? are questions I am obsessed with, and yet I feel I am at times
way too conventional in my own approach to teaching... The decolonial task
is daunting and it's easy to feel overwhelmed. I teach degrowth, political
ecology and agrarian studies. I am active in the degrowth movement and
interested in slow pedagogy and resonance. Together with Wendy and a very
politicized and caring team, we are organizing the next Degrowth
Conference/Encounter/Festival to be held in August 2021 in The Hague and I
wonder if something could be done there for the PeDAGoG agenda, even if the
event is again located in Europe. Let's see what emerges from our needs and
collective vision. I look forward to meeting some of you on the 8th!
Warmly,
Julien-François



On Mon, 6 Jul 2020 at 14:00, Prof. George Kandathil <gmk at iima.ac.in> wrote:

> Dear all:
>
> I have also been part of this wonderful community for some time now-
> thanks to Ashish. Despite having gone through many emails, like some
> others, I couldn’t introduce myself. Thanks, Brandon, for your repeated
> trigger to introduce oneself. Actually, Mohan Turaga, in his last email on
> this thread, has mentioned me as his colleague with interest in
> alternatives to corporate capitalism, particularly from an organizing
> perspective.
>
> My research and teaching interest in alternatives comes from more than ten
> years of research and teaching interest in understanding organizational
> change from critical traditions of research with specific focus on the
> operations of power involved within worker-management relations. Along
> these lines, I have explored, in a limited manner, transformation of an
> Indian privately owned company into a worker owned/ governed worker
> cooperative as an alternative way of organizing. This was part of my
> master's thesis, in 1996. I revisited this experience in 2015 in the form
> of a research monograph. However, following my doctoral dissertation, I
> have been focusing relatively more on topics like managerial control of
> employees and technology-based organizational change, holding down my
> interest in alternatives. The relatively dormant interest in alternatives
> surged due to several incidents. For example, the MBA students of the
> institute where I have been teaching along with Mohan pushed us to discuss
> alternatives in a course that investigates the damage that corporate
> capitalism has been creating through its irresponsible actions. My
> interactions with scholars like Ashish, Mohan and other colleagues help
> gain further momentum. With that enthusiasm, here we are, as Mohan
> mentioned, hoping to learn from this community and take the learnings to
> our research and teaching on alternatives.
>
> I look forward to interacting with you more intensely.
>
> Best.
>
> George
>
>
> On Mon, Jul 6, 2020 at 12:53 PM Rama Mohana Turaga <mohant at iima.ac.in>
> wrote:
>
>> Hello Everyone:
>>
>> Like Shristee, I have been part of this group from the beginning but
>> haven't introduced myself in spite of several such attempts in the past few
>> weeks. Part of the reason is that I think I am really an odd one out in
>> this group - my research and teaching at this point strictly falls within
>> the conventional, dominant paradigms. I have read some amazing emails in
>> the group and often thought Ashish was too kind to include me in this
>> group. I won't be able to speak the same language that many of you are
>> capable of so you have to bear with me.
>>
>> Having said that, I have been working in environmental policy and
>> management for close to 25 years now - first as a consultant in a corporate
>> setting, then as a doctoral student of environmental policy, and for the
>> past 10 years as a faculty at a management school in India. When I reflect
>> on my experience, it has been becoming increasingly obvious that the
>> dominant models of organizing the society are incompatible with addressing
>> the most important problems such as environmental degradation, inequities,
>> and climate crisis that the society is facing today. Over the past 2-3
>> years, George, a colleague who is also part of this group, and I have been
>> exploring ways to invest our time in bringing the alternative models to our
>> classrooms through our own research and networks such as these. So we have
>> nothing to show for so far but hope to make progress in the coming few
>> years, including perhaps a short elective course in our MBA programme on
>> alternatives to corporate capitalism.
>>
>> I may sound selfish here but I think at this point, we have more to learn
>> from this group than to contribute to it intellectually. I hope that is
>> okay.
>>
>> I look forward to engaging with many of you on 8 July.
>>
>> Best,
>> Mohan
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Jul 6, 2020 at 12:25 PM Shrishtee Bajpai <
>> shrishteebajpai at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Dear all,
>>>
>>> Though I have been part of this group from the start, I dont think I
>>> have had the chance to introduce myself. So, I will take the opportunity
>>> now.
>>> I am an activist-researcher from India working with Kalpavriksh- an
>>> environment action group. I help in coordinating the Vikalp Sangam
>>> (Alternatives Confluence) process in India and now also the Global Tapestry
>>> of Alternatives along with some colleagues who are on the list. I have been
>>> primarily working on documenting, researching and networking on
>>> alternatives to development and dominant forms of political and economic
>>> governance.
>>> I am super excited to be in the group as I am also deeply interested in
>>> exploring research, pedagogy and activism from a decolonial perspective.
>>> And now, when I am trying to opt for higher studies, I am finding it really
>>> difficult to find a place to study where pedagogy is decolonised and rooted
>>> in peoples' experiences. Places where different ways of thinking and
>>> learning apparatus are promoted.
>>> Hoping that through this group, I am able to discover some such places.
>>> Would be indebted if anyone has any initial suggestions.
>>>
>>> Looking forward to listening in and learning more on the 8th,
>>> Shrishtee
>>>
>>> On Sun, Jul 5, 2020 at 2:18 AM Katerina Brandes <
>>> katerinabrandes at posteo.de> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi everyone,
>>>>
>>>> yes, thank you Bardon for inviting us to introduce ourselves :).
>>>>
>>>> My name is Katerina and I find it very hard to introduce myself.  But
>>>> why I joined this network is that I am super interested in alternative
>>>> teaching methodologies and trying to bring them into the classes that I am
>>>> involved in - which are few, but let's see where the future brings me. I am
>>>> involved in adult education on postdevelopment as a critique of
>>>> development, critique of development cooperation, and alternatives to both
>>>> (including degrowth). I recently used the book the pluriverse during class
>>>> to inspire students about alternatives to development, they really liked it
>>>> :). I am neither a PhD, nor affiliated as a researcher at a university, I
>>>> am just involved here and there, inside and outside university. Actually I
>>>> believe rather in the system of ecoversities than universities, and still I
>>>> am taking part inside and outside the system. Just the typical development
>>>> cooperation system itself I decided to keep away from. I am active in a
>>>> very young theater collective, where we bring together "mainstream
>>>> scientific facts" and emotional embodied positionalities. We are hoping to
>>>> bring theater more into the academic field or the adademia more out engaged
>>>> with the grassroots. I am excited about non-rational teaching methods in
>>>> (university) classes (including co-creative approaches, theater methods,
>>>> connecting with personal emotional experiences, etc.) and as such pushing
>>>> the boundaries of what is possible.
>>>>
>>>> Looking forward to inspiring each other with this mailing list to push
>>>> the boundaries even further.
>>>>
>>>> Kind greetings,
>>>>
>>>> Katerina
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 01.07.2020 20:33, Irene Sotiropoulou wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Hello everyone,
>>>>
>>>> I am very happy to be a member of the PeDAGoG community.
>>>>
>>>> Brandon, thank you so much for your message and the advice.
>>>>
>>>> My name is Irene and at the moment I am working as a researcher at the
>>>> Energy and Environment Institute of the University of Hull, UK.
>>>> My specialty is heterodox economics, with an emphasis on social and
>>>> solidarity economy, feminist economics, ecological economics, decolonial
>>>> economics, heterodox finance and non-monetary economies, sharing practices,
>>>> economics of the commons, grassroots economics. In Hull I do research about
>>>> the local farmers' markets.
>>>>
>>>> Some days ago i added into the Pedagog pad a link to teaching material
>>>> i have online
>>>> https://hull.academia.edu/IreneSotiropoulou/Teaching-Documents. Most
>>>> of it is in English. On each document there is information about the level
>>>> of teaching it is related to and the place/institution where the teaching
>>>> took place. In case I will be teaching next year, I will be adding more
>>>> material. If you have feedback or you need any further information about
>>>> those documents, please, feel free to contact me.
>>>>
>>>> Thank you very much. I am very glad to be among you.
>>>> Best regards,
>>>> Irene
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Στις Τετ, 1 Ιουλ 2020 στις 5:41 μ.μ., ο/η Brandon Liu <
>>>> brandon.k.liu at gmail.com> έγραψε:
>>>>
>>>>> Dear PeDAGoG community,
>>>>>
>>>>> Welcome to all the new members who have joined! We would love to have
>>>>> you introduce yourselves to the group if you haven't already.
>>>>>
>>>>> At the beginning of each month, I send out an email for "open
>>>>> discussion and updates" as a way to invite everyone to share something
>>>>> that's on their mind with the group. It could be to initiate discussion on
>>>>> a topic or share recent updates from one's own work. Feel free to reply
>>>>> directly to this email or start a new thread. Anything relating to
>>>>> alternative teaching and learning experiences, materials, tools, and
>>>>> perspectives relating to the themes of post-development, broadly
>>>>> understood, would be most welcome.
>>>>>
>>>>> Best,
>>>>> Brandon
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> GTA-PeDAGoG mailing list
>>>>> GTA-PeDAGoG at lists.ourproject.org
>>>>> http://lists.ourproject.org/mailman/listinfo/gta-pedagog
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> GTA-PeDAGoG mailing listGTA-PeDAGoG at lists.ourproject.orghttp://lists.ourproject.org/mailman/listinfo/gta-pedagog
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> “The plain fact is that the planet does not need more successful people. But it does desperately need more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers, and lovers of every kind. It needs people who live well in their places. It needs people of moral courage willing to join the fight to make the world habitable and humane. And these qualities have little to do with success as we have defined it.”
>>>> ― David W. Orr
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> GTA-PeDAGoG mailing list
>>>> GTA-PeDAGoG at lists.ourproject.org
>>>> http://lists.ourproject.org/mailman/listinfo/gta-pedagog
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Shrishtee Bajpai
>>> Kalpavriksh/Vikalp Sangam/Global Tapestry of Alternatives
>>>
>>> http://kalpavriksh.org
>>> www.vikalpsangam.org
>>> www.radicalecologicaldemocracy.org
>>> www.globaltapestryofalternatives.org
>>>
>>> “Like vanishing dew,
>>> a passing apparition
>>> or the sudden flash
>>> of lightning -- already gone --
>>> thus should one regard one's self.”
>>> ― Ikkyu
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> GTA-PeDAGoG mailing list
>>> GTA-PeDAGoG at lists.ourproject.org
>>> http://lists.ourproject.org/mailman/listinfo/gta-pedagog
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> [image: logo.jpg]
>>
>> Rama Mohana R Turaga | रामा मोहन राव तुरग | రామ మోహన రావు తురగా
>>
>> Associate Professor, Public Systems Group | एसोसिएट प्रोफेसर, पब्लिक
>> सिस्टम्स ग्रुप
>>
>> Phone / दूरभाष: +91-79 66324857
>>
>> INDIAN INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT AHMEDABAD | भारतीय प्रबंध संस्थान अहमदाबाद
>>
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