New Book on Social Movement Learning

This book, co-authored by PASCAL Associate Budd Hall, has just been published and I recommend it to subscribers. The following is from the preface by Marjorie Mayo:

The publication of ‘Learning and education for a better world: the role of social movements’ is to be welcomed most warmly. This is such a timely collection of essays, bringing together critical reflections on experiences of social action from across the globe. Previous publications have demonstrated the importance of learning in social movements along with the importance of learning from experiences of participating in social movements (e.g. Eyerman and Jamison, 1991, Foley, 1999 and Kane, 2001). As these writings have demonstrated, these have been two-way processes of learning, acquiring knowledge and skills in order to take action more effectively, and learning through reflecting on the experiences of social action that follow, engaging in movements for social justice and social change. We need to build upon these earlier studies though. Because, as ‘Learning and education for a better world: the role of social movements’ so clearly demonstrates, the case for this type of learning is becoming more and more urgent in the current economic, social, political, environmental and policy context. Since the end of the Cold War, neo-liberal perspectives and policy agendas have become ever more predominant. Back in the Reagan / Thatcher years of the 1980s, the case for neo-liberalism was already being promoted, epitomised by the slogan that ‘There is no alternative’. This slogan has greater resonance than ever in the contemporary context. Public policy discourses have become increasingly dominated by the argument that priority has to be given to the interests of private profitability, even if this too often entails rising unemployment together with reductions in public services to meet the needs of the most vulnerable. People are being invited to believe that they have to suffer – and preferably to suffer in silence rather than take to the streets – to believe that there is nothing else that can be done.

Even more disturbingly in relation to the concerns of this particular book, neoliberal perspectives have come to wield increasing influence over the structures of learning and education (as several chapters so clearly demonstrate). Processes of marketisation have been infiltrating the very institutions, including the schools and universities that should have been concerned with preserving the space for the production of critical thinking and challenging debates. The scope for challenging the predominance of neo-liberalism is being potentially undermined, along with the scope for developing alternative approaches, prioritising human needs before the requirements for private profitability. Meanwhile the economic, social, political, environmental and cultural effects are being experienced globally with increasing inequalities within and between nation states. Bankers have been continuing to enjoy their bonuses whilst the poorest and most vulnerable have been experiencing the sharpest reductions in their livelihoods and well-being.

This has, of course, been increasingly challenged. A range of social movements, including the ‘Occupy’ movement, have been raising fundamental questions about the very nature of capitalism, and the specific impact of the neo-liberal policies that have been producing these growing inequities, in different contexts. As this book so clearly documents, learning has been central to these movements, typified by the seminars that accompanied the ‘Occupy’ movement outside St Pauls Cathedral in the City of London, for example.

Individuals and communities can and do come to develop critical and more creative understandings of their situations, just as they can and do come to develop critical and creative strategies for change. But praxis doesn’t automatically occur spontaneously. Nor do new generations of activists necessarily acquire the theoretical tools that they need in order to make sense of their rapidly changing worlds, providing them with the theoretical basis for developing strategies that effectively demonstrate that another world is possible.

The book is so timely, precisely for this reason. Between them the different chapters bring a series of critical reflections on ways of connecting theory and practice together, linking people’s reflections on their learning from their experiences with the authors’ reflections on the learning to be gained from more theoretical debates. The potential tensions between different approaches and contexts for learning emerge, together with the implications for promoting learning and education for a better world. There are reflections on the tensions that have been inherent in providing university-based programmes of popular education with rather than simply for social movement activists. And there are reflections on the key relevance of varying theoretical approaches and practices, if activists are to be equipped to build alternative strategies for progressive social change and environmental justice. Learning and education for a better world: the role of social movements offers invaluable tools and understandings for all those who share these goals. This book is to be commended to the widest possible readership.

Learning and Education for a Better World: The Role of Social Movements (2012 - 204 pages)

Budd L. Hall (University of Victoria, Canada), Darlene E. Clover (University of Victoria, Canada), Jim Crowther (The University of Edinburgh, Scotland, UK) and Eurig Scandrett (Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK) (Eds.)

ISBN Paperback: 9789460919770 ($ 39.00)
ISBN Hardcover: 9789460919787 ($ 99.00)