Abstract
Drawing on the critical theories of Ernst Bloch and Boaventura de Sousa Santos, as well as on the knowledge and learning practices of counter-capitalist social movements, Amsler’s chapter offers a reading of political hopelessness amongst educators in England through a critical epistemology which discloses it as ‘unfinished’ and potent material within a global politics of possibility. She invokes methods from Bloch’s critical process-philosophy of ‘learning hope’ which allows for three reality-shifting operations: (1) the making of distinctions between what is ‘not’, ‘not-yet’ and ‘nothing’ in experience and historical process; (2) identifying and creating ‘fronts’ of possibility for mediating reality in concretely utopian ways; and (3) the recognition of a multiplicity of anti-hegemonic scales and modes of transformation, and explains why these matter in movements not just for social change but for the immanent creation of an other reality.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
Examples include the Landless Workers Movement’s Florestan Fernandes School, organising political education of movement militants outside and in collaboration with state universities in Brazil (MST 2016); the Universidad de la Tierra (University of the Earth) in Oaxaca and Chiapas, Mexico (Esteva 2007); the ‘Living Learning’ practices of the Abahlali baseMjondolo and Rural Network movements in South Africa (Figlan et al. 2009); and the land-based education Dechinta Centre for Research and Learning in the Canadian (traditional Denendeh) Northwest Territories (Freeland Ballantyne 2014). See also, reflections on recent ‘ecoversity’ gatherings in Teamey and Mandell (2014, 2016).
- 2.
Current examples include Anti-University Now, the Free University of Brighton, Leicester People’s University, Social Science Centre, and the Provisional University (in Ireland), with past projects including Birmingham Radical Education, Free University of Liverpool, Free University Network, Nottingham Free School, Really Open University, Tent City University (Occupy) and more. Other authors refer to this field of projects in Britain as a movement (Lazarus 2013; Saunders and Ghanimi 2013); see also Amsler and Lazarus (2012) for archival commentary on the UK-based Free University Network.
References
Adorno, T. W. (2005). Minima Moralia: reflections from damaged life. London: Verso. First published 1974.
Amsler, S. (2015a). The education of radical democracy. London: Routledge.
Amsler, S. (2015b). ‘Other learnings are possible’. Paper delivered at the University of Plymouth Education Seminar Series, 16 December.
Amsler, S., & Lazarus, J. (2012). ‘Sustaining alternative universities’ website. https://sustainingalternatives.wordpress.com/.
Armbruster–Sandoval. (2005). ‘Is another world possible? Is another classroom possible? Radical pedagogy, activism and social change’. Social Justice, 32(2), 34–51.
Ball, S. (2008). The education debate. Bristol: Policy Press.
Berlant, L. (2010). ‘Cruel optimism’. In M. Gregg & G. Seigworth (Eds.), The affect theory reader. Durham: Duke University Press.
Bloch, E. (1995). The principle of hope. Cambridge: MIT Press. First published 1959.
Brown, W. (1999). Resiting left melancholy. Boundary, 2(2), 19–27.
Busby, E. (2015a). ‘“Relentless” workload forcing “desperate” teachers to leave profession with big pay cuts’, Times Education Supplement, 30 November. https://www.tes.com/news/school-news/breaking-news/relentless-workload-forcing-desperate-teachers-leave-profession-big.
Busby, E. (2015b). ‘Exclusive: “Workload would be easier if you understood the benefits” DfE advisors tell teachers doing 17-hour days’, Times Education Supplement, 20 November. https://www.tes.com/news/school-news/breaking-news/exclusive-workload-would-be-easier-if-you-understood-benefits-dfe.
Callahan, M. (2004). ‘Zapatismo beyond Chiapas’. In D. Sonit (Ed.), Globalize liberation: How to uproot the system and build a better world. San Fransisco: City Lights Books.
Cvetkovich, A. (2012). Depression: A public feeling. Durham: Duke University Press.
De Angelis, M. (1998). ‘2nd encounter for humanity and against neoliberalism, Spain 1997’, Part 1: Introduction. Capital & Class, 22(2), 135–142.
Dinerstein, A. (2015). The politics of autonomy in Latin America: The art of organising hope. New York: Palgrave.
Dinerstein, A., & Deneulin, S. (2012). ‘Hope movements: Naming mobilization in a post-development world’. Development and Change, 43(2), 585–602.
Duggan, L., & Muñoz, J. E. (2009). ‘Hope and hopelessness: A dialogue’. Women & performance: A journal of feminist theory, 19(2), 275–283.
Enlivened Learning. (2015). ‘Gathering of kindred folk re-imagining higher education!’ Enlivened Learning. Website. http://enlivenedlearning.com/2015/08/12/gathering-of-kindred-folk-re-imagining-higher-education/.
Esteva, G. (2007). ‘Reclaiming our freedom to learn’, Yes! Magazine, 7 November. http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/liberate-your-space/reclaiming-our-freedom-to-learn.
Fasheh, M. (2006). ‘Bombardment by “rootless” and “cluster” words, and healing from them through co-authoring meanings’, Swaraj University website. http://www.swaraj.org/shikshantar/lsciran_munir.htm.
Figlan, L., Rev., M., Ngema, B., Nsibande, Z., Sibisi, S., & Zikode, S. (2009). Living learning. http://abahlali.org/files/Living_Learning.pdf.
Freeland Ballyntine, E. (2014). ‘Dechinta Bush University: Mobilizing a knowledge economy of reciprocity, resurgence and decolonization’. Decolonization: Indigenity, Education and Society, 3(3). http://decolonization.org/index.php/des/article/view/22238.
Freire, P., & Horton, M. (1991). We make the road by walking: Conversations on education and social change. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Gibson–Graham, J. K. (2006). A postcapitalist politics. London: University of Minnesota Press.
Graeber, D. (2014). Debt – updated and expanded: The first 5,000 years. New York: Melville House.
Grosfoguel, R. (2007). ‘The epistemic decolonial turn: Beyond political-economy paradigms’. Cultural Studies, 21(2–3), 211–223.
Hall, S. (2003). ‘New Labour’s double-shuffle’. Soundings, 24, 10–24.
Holloway, J. (2010). ‘Cracks and the crisis of abstract labour’. Antipode, 42(4), 909–923.
Jaramillo, N. (2010). ‘Public pedagogy as an act of unlearning’. In J. Sandlin, B. Schultz, & J. Burdick (Eds.), Handbook of public pedagogy: Education and learning beyond schooling. London: Routledge.
Jones, K. (2014). ‘The practice of radical education, from the welfare state to the neo-liberal order’. In C. Burke & K. Jones (Eds.), Education, childhood and anarchism: Talking colin ward. London: Routledge.
Kompridis, N. (2006). Critique and disclosure: Critical theory between past and future. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Lather, P. (2002). ‘Ten years later, yet again: Critical pedagogies and its complicities’. In K. Weiler (Ed.), Feminist engagements: Reading, resisting and revisioning male theorists in education and cultural studies. London: Routledge.
Lazarus, J. (2013). ‘Introducing the free University Network’. Oxford Left Review, 9, 24–28.
Mandell, U. (2014). ‘Re-learning hope’. Enlivened Learning, 26 February. http://enlivenedlearning.com/2014/02/26/re-learning-hope/.
Misoczky, M. C. (2007). ‘The crisis of power and the futures of hope’. Revista De Administração Contemporânea, 11(3), 249–268.
Motta, S. C. (2014a). ‘Constructing twenty-first century socialism in Latin America: The role of radical education’. In S. C. Motta & M. Cole (Eds.), Constructing twenty-first century socialism in Latin America: The role of radical education. London: Springer.
Motta, S. C. (2014b). ‘Latin America: Reinventing revolutions, an “other” politics in practice and theory’. In R. Stahler-Sholk, H. Vanden, & M. Becker (Eds.), Rethinking Latin American social movements: Radical action from below. NewYork: Rowman and Littlefield.
Motta, S., & Esteves, A. M. (2014). ‘Reinventing emancipation in the 21st century: The pedagogical practices of social movements’. Interface, 6(1). http://www.interfacejournal.net/2014/06/interface-volume-6-issue-1-movement-pedagogies/.
MST (2016). ‘Florestan Fernandes National School’, http://www.mstbrazil.org/content/florestan-fernandes-national-school.
Plaice, N., Plaice, S., & Knight, P. (1995). ‘Translators’ introduction’. In E. Bloch, The principle of hope. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Precey, M. (2015). ‘Teacher stress levels in England “soaring”, data shows’, BBC News, 17 March. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-31921457, Reporting on BBC Radio4 programme, ‘Sick of School’, 22 March 2015. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b055g8zh.
Santos, B. (2014). Epistemologies of the South: Justice against Epistemicide. London: Routledge.
Saunders, G., & Ghanimi, A. (2013). ‘Lifelong learning without lifelong debt’, The Ragged University. 25 September. http://www.raggeduniversity.co.uk/2013/09/25/edinburgh-brighton-britains-free-alternative-higher-education-network-offers-life-long-learning-life-long-debt-gary-saunders-ali-ghanimi/#more-7499.
Shaw, C., & Ward, L. (2014). ‘Dark thoughts: Why mental illness is on the rise in academia’. The Guardian, 6 March. http://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/2014/mar/06/mental-health-academics-growing-problem-pressure-university.
Sitrin, M. (2014). ‘Goals without demands: New movements for real democracy’. South Atlantic Quarterly, 113(2), 245–258.
Teamey, K., & Mandell, U. (2014). ‘Re-imagining higher education’, OpenDemocracy, 1 December. https://www.opendemocracy.net/transformation/kelly-teamey-udi-mandel/reimagining-higher-education.
Teamey, K., & Mandell, U. (2016). ‘Are eco-versities the future for higher education?’ Open Democracy, 6 April. https://www.opendemocracy.net/transformation/kelly-teamey-udi-mandel/are-eco-versities-future-for-higher-education.
Torres, C. A., & Jones, G. (2013). ‘Neoliberal common sense in education, part one’. International Studies in Sociology of Education, 23(2), 77–79.
Wilson, J., & Swyngedouw, E. (2014). The post-political and its discontents: Spaces of depoliticization, spectres of radical politics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Amsler, S. (2016). Learning Hope. An Epistemology of Possibility for Advanced Capitalist Society. In: Dinerstein, A. (eds) Social Sciences for an Other Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47776-3_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47776-3_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-47775-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-47776-3
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)