Citizens educating themselves:

1. 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

2. Acknowledgement Thanks 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.

3. . • 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)

4. 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

5. 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

6. “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 ~200 abandoned factories

7. 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.

8. teaching & learning inventions Two observations from contemporary adult education : • REPRODUCTIVE EDUCATION • CAPITALISM PROFITING FROM EDUCATION Bourgeois class has “the power to profit from educational knowledge...” (Murphy, 1988) However, the autonomous movement in Argentina appears to escape both

9. Pair up! • Why do you think corporations could not profit from the education of the Argentineans organized in the new autonomous movement?

10. power to profit from education proportional to • Assimilation into institutional, labour and political structures • Incorporation into production machinery

11. 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).

12. 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).

13. 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)

14. “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

15. recent information • Neighborhood Assembly in Gualeguaychu city Buenos Aires Took over a huge environmental challenge by self-educating, researching, and taking communal activism against the building of one of the biggest pulp mill in the world: “Botnia”, on the Uruguay River banks

16. Issues of power symmetry

17. European Union-LA Summit http://www.noalaspapeleras.com.ar/noalaspapeleras.asp

18. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08ysmal2_CY&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.noalaspapeleras.com.ar%2Fvideos.asp&feature=player_embeddedhttp://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

19. Thank you • Notes in: www.education.ualberta.ca/staff/ldelia