Abstract
This article contributes to a praxis of critical hope by combining recent critical political economic (CPE) analyses of postdigital education with the inspiring experimental practices emerging from the new field of critical digital pedagogy (CDP). I argue that CDP offers hope to educators looking for practical ways beyond capitalist exploitation and alienation, but lacks the analytical foundations needed to contribute to the liberation of our ‘general intellect.’ I highlight the emergence of the Free/Libre Open-Source Software (FLOSS) movement and ‘hacker class’ as exemplars of a more dialectically conscious praxis. Conversely, I encourage CPE scholars of the postdigital to contribute to developing both intellectual tools for understanding our position within capitalism and practical tools for hacking for our liberation. Throughout the article, I use a historical materialist lens to emphasise that we can identify the conditions of and elaborate the strategies for achieving our emancipation in the dialectic of the historically specific contradictions generated by specific class antagonisms. It is in this dialectic that we find a critical hope.
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Notes
Ben Fowkes’ translation in the Penguin edition reads ‘value in process’ (Marx 1992a). Here, to express the dynamism I seek to emphasise, I select the translation ‘value in motion’ offered on www.marxists.org.
See http://hybridpedagogy.org/ for the online home of the Critical Digital Pedagogy community.
Also known as Free Software Movement (FSM) or Free and Open-Source Software Movement (FOSSM).
Connectivism and Connective Knowledge run by Stephen Downes and George Siemens at University of Manitoba. See https://sites.google.com/site/themoocguide/3-cck08%2D%2D-the-distributed-course.
Run by Ray Shraeder and then Jeff Lebow of Busan University. See https://sites.google.com/site/themoocguide/12-edumooc%2D%2D-extending-a-mooc.
Digital Storytelling run by no one, but convened by Jim Groom and Martha Burtis at University of Mary Washington. See http://ds106.us/about/.
See 'Your Unguided tour of Rhizo14' by Dave Cormier at http://davecormier.com/edblog/2014/01/12/your-unguided-tour-of-rhizo14/.
See 'Trying to write Rhizomatic Learning in 300 words' by Dave Cormierat http://davecormier.com/edblog/2012/12/13/trying-to-write-rhizomatic-learning-in-300-words/.
See 'Rhizomatic Learning – The community is the curriculum' at https://courses.p2pu.org/en/courses/882/rhizomatic-learning-the-community-is-the-curriculum/.
I am part of a UK-based group which meets both online and face-to-face and works to explore the nature and heal the wounds of intergenerational violence and trauma. Over the past two years, we have worked at endlessly surprising depths even online. See https://pocketproject.org/.
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Lazarus, J. Hacking the MOOC: Towards a Postdigital Pedagogy of Critical Hope. Postdigit Sci Educ 1, 391–412 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-019-00063-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-019-00063-w