Christoph Neusiedl

Revolutions in Learning and Education from India: Pathways towards the Pluriverse

The session will be online via Zoom on 28th June 2021, 05:00 pm onwards:

https://zoom.us/j/93158737140?pwd=aFlpM3J0QjZlUUhrN28vYkR6aWRrdz09

To get priority access in case of large affluence, kindly register to:
neeru[dot]gohar[at]csh-delhi[dot]com

Abstract: ‘We cannot solve our problems with the very same thinking that created them’. This quote, attributed to Einstein, sums up one of the main arguments of this talk and of the recently published book, “Revolutions in Learning and Education from India”, on which it is based. The presentation will argue that in order to tackle the many challenges – from rising inequality and poverty levels to environmental degradation, climate change, political apathy, and a general sense of disenchantment – that are found in today’s world, we need to stop relying on the ideas of “Development”, economic growth and “progress” so deeply ingrained in our minds. While, as it will be argued, schooling and other forms of modern education are some of the key instruments that keep us firmly within the ambit of this ‘sacrosanct canon’ of development, growth and progress, there exists an abundance of educational projects which re-imagine learning and education, and therefore also re-envision what makes meaningful – and more sustainable – lives. Drawing on several case studies from the Indian subcontinent, the presentation will introduce some of these alternatives and show how they can be understood as a form of prefigurative politics based on Jacques Rancière’s principle of radical equality.

Speaker:

Christoph Neusiedl obtained his Ph. D. in Asian and International Studies at the City University of Hong Kong in 2019. His doctoral dissertation was given the City University Outstanding Research Award. Endowed with an extensive experience in the field of alternative education in India, Christoph Neusiedl produces transdisciplinary research that is located at the crossroad of post-development and radical political theory and the Philosophy of Education. His recently published book “Revolutions in Learning and Education from India: Pathways towards the Pluriverse” offers a critique of the ways in which mainstream education contributes to perpetuate an inherently unjust and exploitative development model. As an alternative, the book proposes a new anarchistic, postdevelopmental framework that goes beyond Development and schooling to ask what really makes meaningful lives.