This talk is part of the Plymouth Institute of Education Research Seminar Series and will be given by Dr Sarah Amsler from the University of Lincoln.

https://www.plymouth.ac.uk/whats-on/other-learnings-are-possible

Sarah’s talk offers a brief introduction to some diverse forms of education now being practised around the world and considers the light these shed on the politics of counter-capitalist educational projects in Britain today. It asks why radical imaginaries of autonomous, egalitarian, co-operative and post-capitalist education remain marginal in educational discourses and politics here despite decades of opposition to the marketisation of society, extensive academic and experiential evidence of its exclusionary consequences, and the growth of global education movements which demonstrate the liberatory potential of counter-hegemonic epistemological and pedagogical practices.

The talk will argue that mainstream education debates, institutionalized educational practice and critiques of both in the UK are often framed within colonial logics that not only contribute to the production of social and epistemic injustice but render already-existing and not-yet alternatives invisible or impossible.

The aim of the talk is to explore how decolonising these logics can create space for the emergence of new imaginaries which support the flourishing of life rather than its domination, open possibilities for educating radical democracy, and equip us to collectively embrace the challenges of reclaiming our ecological, political and economic futures from our own locations today.

The seminar starts at 2pm and all are welcome but spaces are limited. 

Please contact artsresearch@plymouth.ac.uk if you have any queries about the event.

Speaker biography

Sarah Amsler is a sociologist, critical theorist and reader in Education at the University of Lincoln. She works at the intersections of the sociology of knowledge, political economy, and pedagogies and processes of social and epistemic change. Her current research focuses on counter-capitalist and radical-democratic movements within and beyond cultural institutions, and on articulating education as a site of political trans/formation which is central to the critique and overcoming of dominating social relations and rationalities.