[PeDAGoG] Introducing free home university and ecoversities

Wed Jul 8 00:22:12 CEST 2020

This follows up on Alessandra P's e-mail because I have been meaning to
send the attached, in which Ecoversities plays a big role.

I almost mentioned PeDAGoG but didn't think I was quite ready to try to
present it well.

Another reason to look forward to our meeting!

abrazos a todes,

John

On Tue, Jul 7, 2020 at 1:33 PM Alessandra Pomarico <
alessandrapomarico at gmail.com> wrote:

> hello everyone,
> i meant to write for a long time, but overwhelmed with communication and
> (re) organization. I echo the gratitude for all that has been shared so
> far, and for this space to exist at the intersection of activism, pedagogy,
> scholarly and community based knowledge production, supporting ways of
> learning within a wider ecology and epistemology.
>
> I'm a curator, writer, and educator. I "walked out" from the Academic
> world, although I'm often invited back by those brave enough to attempt
> reforming/ decolonizing it from within, willing to gain perspective through
> those with experience and practice outside formal institutions. After my
> PHD in sociology of migration, and a few traumatic experiences (nepotism
> and misogyny, and disciplinary islands of power in Italian universities
> where i come from/ high pressure and competition in the States, where I
> moved to - I simply did not not have the stamina to survive in the academic
> system, especially during my daughter's early childhood, and found more joy
> and energy in creating something outside of it.
>
>  With a group of friends, thinkers, artists and activists i co-founded *free
> home university (FHU) *a pedagogical artistic experiment (since 2013,
> Italy) in which we focus on collective, intergenerational, experiential,
> emergent, holistic forms of learning, centering around communities of
> struggles (permaculture/ organic farmers, environmental and lgbtqi
> activists, migrants and asylum seekers, politically and socially engaged
> artists). We form groups of local, national and international learners -
> carriers of different knowledges- and we anchor our research in response
> and in dialogue with  our local context. We consider *pedagogy as
> politics, *and create temporary communities in which living, studying and
> working together - within a specific territory- are not separated spheres.
> We literally live together under the same roof, for a certain time, as the
> core of our methodology, that includes aspects of our own social
> reproduction and material form of living.
>
> Our methodology is informed by *artistic inquiry and convivial research, *art
> is our tool, or the sensibility/ approach through which we unfold our
> "action-research" and proceed by questioning. Theater, dance, film making,
> design, sound, writing, painting, music, hands- on building, have been the
> ways in which we have in each session unfolded our query and practiced a
> way of commoning,  exploring questions related to food production,  land,
> ecology, forms of oppression, displacement and belonging, but also ways of
> finding joy, celebrating, being in solidarity and cultivate a spirit of
> interconnectedness.
> we try to move beyond the critique for the current state of the world, and
> to embody possibilities of  alternative ways of knowing, being and
> relating, exercising our capacities to enact change and to care for each
> other and the planet.  It's a sort of acupuncture approach that in these 7
> years has generated tangible transformation, strong alliance, multiplied
> the initiatives, generated relationships, and an incredible amount of
> material and immaterial knowledge.
> www.fhu.art
>
> This work led me to meet and become an active member of the *Ecoversities
> Alliance* (I'm one of the 6 members of EA steering committee since 2016).
> EA is an informal planetary network dedicated to reimagining education,
> encompassing more than 100 initiatives worldwide, and growing into various
> other networks. A large spectrum of unlearning and up-learning communities,
> concerned with regenerative forms of knowing, ecology, autonomy, social and
> environmental justice, decoloniality, Indigenous knowledge, healing, gift
> and non capitalistic oriented economies, degrowith and spirituality. Within
> and beyond our multiple knowledge systems, geographies, perspectives,
> methods and approaches, we find our common denominator in considering
> education/ pedagogy as a fundamental area for the paradigmatic shift we are
> called upon to produce, in the defense of life, in all its forms and
> relations.
> In order  to strengthen our relationship and create possibility of further
> learning and cross pollination, Ecoversities Alliance  is supporting
> exchange visits and residency programs between ecoversities, regional
> gatherings (Asia, Euromediterrean, Africa, Arab world, Indigenous nations,
> Latin America), planetarial gatherings (so far Portugal, Costa Rica, India,
> Mexico, next was supposed to be in South Africa), publications, films and
> podcasts focusing on education; seeds funds to support new and ongoing
> ecoversities and initiatives to support networking and collective actions
> aligned with our vision.
>
> during the pandemic, Ecoversities is hosting a  series of conversations
> curated by Udi Mandel and myself, called Learning with Covid,
> https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEMyvDsLrx88UiQcgf_ITVw
>
> find out more about EA
> www.ecoversities.org
>
> I'm also  an editor for  ARTSEVERYWHERE platform, where I created the
> inquiry on  pedagogy / alternative education and collaborated with other
> publishing initiatives.
> www.artseverywhere.ca
>
> *Pedagogy Otherwise, the reader-* is a small volume i edited putting in
> conversation  voices from ecoversities and free home university. you can
> download it here.
> https://www.fhu.art/pedagogy-otherwise-ed-alessandra-pomarico
>
> Apologies for the length of this note, I'm not sure that I will be able to
> join you in the call tomorrow, that's why I wanted to give you a bit more
> details.
> I especially would encourage a cross pollination with Ecoversties, as we
> are interested in expanding the realm of our initiatives and bridge with
> those like you who are inside the academia, and with whom I felt a profound
> resonance with
>
> thank you
>
> Alessandra Pomarico
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, Jul 7, 2020 at 7:20 AM Sadia Sohail <Sadia.Sohail at in.boell.org>
> wrote:
>
>> Dear members of this group,
>>
>> Let me also take this opportunity to introduce myself.
>>
>> I am Sadia Sohail, working as a programme coordinator at the Delhi office
>> of Heinrich Boll Stiftung, a German foundation affiliated to the Green
>> Party. We at our office are increasingly engaging ourselves in discovering
>> and learning about pedagogies of ecology, gleaning from the traditional
>> knowledge systems, methodologies and mediums of documentation that people
>> at large can resonate with. We hope to share with the group our experiments
>> on that front soon. Having said that and as some of the other colleagues
>> mentioned,  I am here to learn and gain from the work that many of you are
>> doing.
>>
>> Looking forward to the exchange.
>>
>> best regards,
>> Sadia
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>>
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