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LR Lonnie Rowell Public Seen by 428

Welcome to the Global Assembly Open Conversations space! Thank you for your interest and participation. This is a sub-group of the larger Global Assembly organizing and coordination platform on loomio. In this sub-group you will see discussions of a variety of topics emerging from a series of pre-conference and pre-Global Assembly events taking place around the world beginning in February 2017. These events have been convened as "participatory workshops" under the leadership of Lesley Wood in South Africa and Mary McAteer in Great Britain. Everyone participating in a workshop is being invited to join in this conversation. The conversations here will provide key input for the Global Assembly, in addition to the more formal "reports" being drafted by workshop conveners and shared on the loomio space as well.

The workshops constitute the foundation of the Global Assembly that will take place June 16 in Cartagena, when 200 participants gather to consider pathways forward for knowledge democracy in relation to alternative global development and the place of action research and all forms of participatory research in relation to such development. The workshops are mostly local and regional gatherings, although the first workshop, organized by Jack Whitehead in the UK, featured global links with participants from several parts of the world. As we get closer to the Cartagena gathering (June 12 - June 16), we will begin to look at the themes emerging across workshops and will ask that some participants in this sub-group take on drafting "Theme Statements" that then will be discussed by participants in Global Assembly pre-conference workshops on June 12 and again by the full Assembly on June 16.

At present we have established four conversation threads in this space, and new threads will be added as interest grows. The points below provide a quick overview of the larger picture of the Global Assembly and offer some background and context for the Assembly initiative:

  • The Global Assembly initiative has three components. Each component is summarized below.
    • The first component is the participatory workshops now taking place around the world. The first workshop was organized by Jack Whitehead, Marie Huxtable, Jackie DeLong and others and took place in February. Lesley Wood and Mary McAteer are coordinating this component.
    • The second component is the June 12 Pre Conference workshops. The pre-conference will consist of nine workshops taking place at the University of Cartagena. I have attached a file with the workshop descriptions. Signing up for the workshops will take place from late-April to early May. To sign up you must be registered for the conference. Workshop space will be limited and advance sign ups are required.
    • The third component is the actual Global Assembly event, which will take place on June 16. We are still working on the venue for the Assembly and are considering proposals for how the Global Assembly will be structured.

The Global Assembly for Knowledge Democracy is an initiative of ARNA (the Action Research Network of the Americas) in collaboration with other networks of action research and participatory research found in various parts of the world. ARNA launched the initiative as a part of its work on alternative knowledge mobilization. Thanks again for your participation.

Warm Regards,

Lonnie Rowell, Co-Chair, 1st Global Assembly for Knowledge Democracy (GAKD)

NW

Nina Wallerstein Sat 22 Apr 2017 1:00AM

Hello all: I welcome the opportunity to have a global discussion of knowledge democracy, which will facilitate mutual learning across countries and political contexts. I am including links to a recent open source article that represents a shared collaboration between U.S. and Brazilian colleagues related to participatory action research within the health arena. We sought to have a dialogue between our two contexts, with the specific goal of addressing how Paulo Freire's contribution looks today 45 years after the publication of Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Even within our very different historical, political, and research contexts, we were able to identify a slice of researchers in each country with a shared set of values, similar participatory approaches, and a commitment to social justice outcomes that were illustrated within our case studies.

Look forward to meeting with others and continuing these dialogues in Cartagena.

Abrazos, Nina Wallerstein, University of New Mexico

Abstract: http://www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/7/2/6/
PDF Version: http://www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/7/2/6/pdf