Abstract
Freire believed in the possibility of change and rejected the Neo Liberal discourse that presents poverty as inevitable, therefore rendering ‘opportunities for change’ invisible. Freire considered that it is a prerogative of ‘being’ in the world to transform it, rather than adapt to an unethical order of things. Freire states that it is our responsibility (and privilege) to intervene in reality, and as ‘progressive educators, we must be committed to those responsibilities.’ This introductory chapter is a synopsis of how the individual contributors have created a space to ‘question the fatalistic perceptions of the circumstances in which they find themselves’ (ibid), and share their ideas for positive change.
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Notes
- 1.
In 2015, The United Nations announced 17 Sustainable Development Goals to be achieved by 2013, (Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development) This included 169 targets across the goals.
- 2.
Terri Bucci & Sarah Schmidt, The Ohio State University, (USA) presented this work at the Transforming Communities Conference, University of Central Lancashire, UK, 2014.
- 3.
Editor’s note: the term Social Abjection, explored by sociologist Imogen Tyler in her work Revolting Subjects: Social Abjection and Resistance in Neoliberal Britain (Tyler 2013).
Margaret Ledwith refers to Tyler’s argument from a British perspective stating; “British Citizenship has been redesigned to abjectify specific groups or populations, producing paralysed, dejected and deplorable populations of non – citizens within the borders of the nation state. The aim is to target certain social groups and to disqualify them from belonging, abjectifying them outside the realms of citizenship” (Ledwith 2016: 129). Although here Ledwith and Tyler refer to the UK context, this concept is transferable to any culture deemed ‘maladjusted’ by Western neo liberalism.
- 4.
David Mowat, Independent Activist, Community Development Worker Musician and Human Ecologist, (UK/International) The aSALT course re-launched in 2014 after a three year interval by David Mowat, a free-lance facilitator and trainer and an Associate at the Schumacher Institute in Bristol. The Schumacher Institute is an independent ‘think and do’ tank that applies systems approaches to change work in the light of transitions to more resilient, just and humane social orders. Mowat presented a workshop at the Transforming Communities Conference, University of Central Lancashire 2014.
- 5.
Editor’s note: The Freire Institute describe Conscientization as, ‘the process of developing a critical awareness of one’s social reality through reflection and action. Action is fundamental because it is the process of changing the reality. Paulo Freire says that we all acquire social myths which have a dominant tendency, and so learning is a critical process which depends upon uncovering real problems and actual needs’ (Freire Institute 2017).
References
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Freire. (1998). Pedagogy of freedom: Ethics, democracy, and civic courage (p. 32). Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, and also Freire. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. London: Bloomsbury, chapter 3.
Freire, P. (2007a). Daring to dream: Towards a pedagogy of the unfinished. London: Paradigm.
Freire, P. (2007b). Education for critical consciousness. New York: Continuum.
Freire Institute. (2017). http://freire.org/paulo-freire/concepts-used-by-paulo-freire
Gottlieb, R. S. (1989). An anthology of Western Marxism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Ledwith, M. (2016). Community development in action. Bristol: Policy Press.
Melling, A., & Khan, W. (2012). ‘Crossing the road’: The value of inclusive pedagogical practice for South Asian women in Burnley, East Lancashire. Widening Participation and Lifelong Learning, 14(3), 190–201.
Pilger, J. (2017). John Pilger. Retrieved from www.johnpilger.com: http://johnpilger.com/videos/utopia
Tyler, I. (2013). Revolting subjects: Social abjection and resistance in neoliberal Britain. London: Zed Books.
Tyler, I. (2014, October 30). “Being poor is not entertainment”: Class struggles against poverty porn. Retrieved from Imogen Tyler: https://socialabjection.wordpress.com/
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Melling, A. (2018). Introduction. In: Melling, A., Pilkington, R. (eds) Paulo Freire and Transformative Education. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-54250-2_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-54250-2_1
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