‘Heteropolitics’: Refiguring the Common and the Political
Here’s a video presentation of Yiannis Pechtelidis’ recently published book on the commons in education (Για μια Εκπαίδευση των Κοινών εντός και πέραν των “Τειχών”), followed by a very interesting discussion on the potential of a commons-based education for a democratic transformation of the educational system and of knowledge production.
The Heteropolitics research project (2017-2020), which has been funded by the European Research Council (ERC), explores alternative modes of political organization at local level in Greece, Italy and Spain.
The Heteropolitics project looks at local structures of community organization as cultural spaces self-managed by citizen groups in collaboration with the municipal government and political formats by which citizen collectives run for elections and claim the right to take a more active role in municipal administration with the intent of increasing the real participation of citizens in local government. In other words, the research is focused on alternative forms of political organization at local level based on the citizens’ own initiative and on the local government, which improve everyday life and the real quality of democracy.
As Alexandros Kioupkiolis mentions: “our aim is to collect, show and spread good practices of alternative political organizations, which emerge from the bottom up in the three countries we studied. Our goal is to promote a deepening of democracy with the aim of dealing creatively with the political and social crisis”.
For those who were unable to follow the live-stream of the workshop we organized last weekend at the Faculty of Economic and Political Sciences at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, here’s the video of the 1st day, which includes the presentations of the final findings by the heteropolitics research group, as well as the sound-recording of the plenary discussion that took place on the 2nd day of the workshop.
We are also going to add english subtitles to the videos in order to make them more accessible to non-Greek speaking audiences, so make sure to check back in a few days!
For researchers and activists interested in exploring the transformative potential of the commons, the Heteropolitics research team is organizing a two-day workshop at the Faculty of Economic and Political Sciences at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki on 17-18 October, which will be live-streamed via our periscope channel: https://www.periscope.tv/w/1ynJOqarjzyKR
Update: the stream will go live at 15.15 p.m. on Saturday
On Saturday 3 October at 17.00, Aimilia Voulvouli will be presenting her work on Sarantaporo.gr at the tavern “Thronos” in Pithio, which is one of the villages that participate in the network. The presentation, which will be in greek, will be live-streamed on our youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCn48Vey0gZdmoKNXzHqcmBw
Το Σάββατο 3 Οκτωβρίου στις 5 το απόγευμα, θα πραγματοποιηθεί παρουσίαση της έρευνας της Αιμιλίας Βουλβούλη σχετικά με το Ασύρματο Κοινοτικό Δίκτυο Sarantaporo.gr στην ταβέρνα “Ο Θρόνος” στο Πύθιο Ελασσόνας, ένα από τα χωριά που συμμετέχουν στο δίκτυο. Θα παρέχεται η δυνατότητα livestreaming από το κανάλι των Ετεροπολιτικών στο youtube: https://www.youtube.com/
We’ve just come across the Urban Commons Handbook, “a handbook for those interested in starting, growing and supporting community-led projects”. “Which ingredients of a cooperative community project most help it succeed? What are urban commons and how do they fit into current activist and civil society debates? And what tools and methods do commoners need to strengthen their work? These are the three questions at the heart of The Urban Commons Cookbook“.
P2P Models, a EU-funded research project based at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid in Spain, with Principal Investigator and advisors from the Berkman Klein Center at Harvard University, is looking for a postdoc researcher “to lead social research of Collaborative Economy communities which may enable the development of software prototypes grounded on social theory”. The deadline for applications is 1 September 2020. For more info, see https://p2pmodels.eu/jobs/
A new paper by Yiannis Pechtelidis and Alexandros Kioupkiolis, titled Education as Commons, Children as Commoners: The Case Study of the Little Tree Community, has just been published in Democracy & Education. Here’s the abstract:
This paper presents the emergent paradigm of the “commons” as an alternative value and action system in the field of education, and it critically draws out the implications of the commons for refiguring education and its potential contribution to democratic transformation. The paper delves into an independent pedagogical community, Little Tree, which is active in early childhood education and care, aiming to explore the ways in which children conduct themselves in accordance with the ethics and the logics of the commons and to show how they thereby unsettle the conventional meaning of citizenship. Proceeding from an enlarged notion of the political, the collective action of children and adults on social relations and subjectivities in their ordinary activities and intercourse in the Little Tree community are explored, and the dominant beliefs and ideas about the political ability of children are contested. This enlarged take on the political is crucial to empowering children and to enhancing their participation in public life. This pedagogical community is taken up as an instance of commoning education, that is, of configuring education as a common good, which is collectively governed by its community on terms of freedom, equality, active and creative participation.
For readers of our blog who are interested in exploring the application of commons-based models to drug development, there is a very interesting online event with Dr George Papanikolaou (P2P Foundation) and Marianella Kloka (Praksis) on Wednesday 18 March on the topic of open science and what it means for the development of pharmaceutical drugs. For more info, see https://www.eventbrite.com/e/open-science-in-drug-development-coronachallenge-tickets-99547613592