The Institute for Media and Creative Industries at Loughborough University London invites to:
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Large creative initiatives to tackle complex problems depend on daring to think long term. The unpredictability of the future, challenged by pandemics, climate change, social and political instabilities, on the top of longstanding and increasing regimes of inequalities across the globe, suggests that we need to build and strengthen human capacities that go beyond reaching efficiency. Dealing with threats requires resilience and solidarity.
This cycle celebrates the centennial of the birth of Brazilian educator, Paulo Freire (1921-1997), and, inspired by his works, invites radical thinking and political imagination. Freire’s ‘ontological call’ is associated with five principles, those of humility, empathy, love, hope and dialogue (Freire, 2017, p. 33), which he presented as the spirit of one of his main referential works, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, originally published in 1968. These principles were developed by Freire in different degrees and forms throughout his works, and they also served as inspiration for many thinkers and practitioners all over the world. Can they serve as seminal inspiration for creatively devising the next 100 years?
Recognizing Freire’s strong influence upon participatory communication and civil society development in Brazil and beyond[i], this cycle includes two Plenaries and five Global Exchanges. We are also inviting local groups (research centres, faculties, networks of practitioners etc) to engage organizing Local Exchanges to unfold the Global Dialogues in relation to their contexts.
[i] The Institute for Media and Creative Industries at Loughborough University has held a series of activities gathering scholars from different regions of the world about the legacy of Paulo Freire in the field of participatory communication and civil society development. Recently, we have published two special issues coming from a previous cycle of debates around this subject. You can see them here and here.
PROGRAMME
Opening Plenary FREI BETTO
Opening Plenary: Homage to Paulo Freire in his centenary
March 9th, 2021, 10 am (Sao Paulo) / 1 pm (London)
Frei Betto, Brazil
Frei Betto is a Dominican friar and writer, author of 69 books, many of them translated in multiple languages. He studied journalism, anthropology, philosophy and theology. He is an advisor to pastoral and social movements. He was a columnist for newspapers Correio Braziliense, O Estado de S. Paulo, O Estado de Minas, Hoje em Dia, O Dia, O Globo, and Caros Amigos magazine. In 1990 he was one of the founders of the Central de Movimentos Populares (CMP), and in 2000 he created the Frei Tito de Alencar Lima News Agency for Latin America (Adital).
He received several awards, in Brazil and abroad, for his fight for human rights. He also won several literary awards, among which the Jabuti award won in 1982 and 2005, the most important literary award in Brazil. He also received the Juca Pato Award after being elected by the Brazilian Union of Writers (UBE) Intellectual of the Year in 1986. In 2009, he was awarded the ALBA de Las Letras Award in recognition of his literary work.
At the end of 2014, he was the first person to win the Dom Paulo Evaristo Arns Award for his human rights career. In October 2015, he received the title of Doctor Honoris Causa in Philosophy, granted by the University of Havana.
In April 2016, the University Council of the Universidad Nacional de Costa Rica awarded Frei Betto the Medalla Universidad Nacional “in recognition of his legacy that has so influenced art, education and other forms of expression and thought of humanity, especially in Latin America, in addition to spreading a culture of peace and respect for the Earth and human life. ”
In 2017 he was awarded by the José Martí University, of Monterrey, Mexico, the title Doctor Honoris Causa for his work in advancing education in Latin America.
He is a member of the World Council of the José Martí Project for International Solidarity.
On March 24, 2017, he received from the President of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, the Medal of the National Order of Merit, in the Grade of Officer, for his outstanding fight in defence of human rights, a trajectory that has made him a reference in the contemporary history of Latin America.
He is currently an adviser to Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), the UN agency for Food Security and Nutrition Education (2019).
Book store: www.freibetto.org
Moderator: Thomas Tufte, Loughborough University London
Talk: DIALOGUE
March 10th, 10am (Sao Paulo) / 1 pm (London)
“Dialogue is Freire’s central mechanism of change and this is what makes Peruzzo define that, more than pedagogical, Freire’s vision is one of communication. As she states, communication is profoundly inscribed into his model of teaching and learning. It is part and parcel of a permanent exchange between teachers and pupils. Waisbord takes the argument a step further, suggesting that ‘communication is how we learn to be human’, and highlighting how Freire’s work displays several features that configure a ‘blueprint for democratic communication’ that clashes with any manifestation of populism. Dialogue is, therefore, a cross-cutting principle.” (Suzina & Tufte, 2020, p.414, accessible here)
Claudia Magallanes, Universidad Iberoamericana Puebla, Mexico
Claudia Magallanes Blanco is Professor in the Department of Humanities at Universidad Iberoamericana Puebla, Mexico where she co-founded the masters’ in Communication and Social Change. She holds a PhD in Humanities from University of Western Sydney, Australia and a specialization on Epistemologies of the South by the Latin American Council on Social Sciences (CLACS). An academic and activist for social justice, she has been working with collectives and organizations concerned with community and indigenous communication for more than 15 years. Her research is mainly centered in the participatory diagnosis, evaluation and planning of indigenous and community media and communication projects. She also has worked on Media and communication practices of Social Movements in Latin America.
Mayrá Lima, Landless Workers Movement, Brazil
Mayrá Lima is a journalist and doctor in Political Science from the University of Brasília. She is a member of the communication sector of the Landless Rural Workers Movement / MST-Brasil and has worked in communication collectives, such as Intervozes- Coletivo Brasil de Comunicação Social. She researches the political behavior of rural elites in Brazil and issues related to communication and democracy, social movements and participation.
Moderators:
César Jiménez-Martínez, Cardiff University
Happy Singu Hansen, Loughborugh University London
Talk: LOVE
March 15th, 2021, 10h (São Paulo), 13h (Londres)
“The principle of love guides an approach that connects reason with the senses. Raquel Paiva emphasizes the cultural nature of Freire’s pedagogy whereby he places the value of relationships over the rigor of discipline. It is a method that acknowledges the Other in plenitude and all forms of knowledge. Overall, it is a model of development based on collective ties including all beings, humans or not.” (Suzina & Tufte, 2020, p.414-415, accessible here)
Karin Wilkins, University of Miami, USA
Karin Gwinn Wilkins (PhD, University of Pennsylvania) is Dean of the School of Communication at the University of Miami. Previously, she was Associate Dean for Faculty Advancement and Strategic Initiatives with the Moody College of Communication at the University of Texas at Austin. She was awarded the Cale McDowell Award for Innovation in Undergraduate Studies, for creating a certificate in global studies, programs in Middle East studies, and a degree in Communication and Leadership. Wilkins is also a recognized fellow of the International Communication Association (ICA), and has concluded her term as Editor-in-Chief of Communication Theory. She has won numerous awards for her research, service and teaching, currently serving as Vice-President of the Arab-US Association for Communication Education and having chaired the ICA Intercultural/Development Division. Her work addresses scholarship in the fields of development communication, gender and global communication. Her upcoming book with University of California Press, Prisms of Prejudice: Mediating the Middle East from the United States, will be released in 2021.
Certificate of Compassion and Social Communication from Signis and the Xavier University of Bhubaneshwar.
Xavier Carbonell, Cuba
Xavier Carbonell (Cuba, 1995). Writer and journalist. Graduated in Hispanic Philology, from the Universidad Central “Marta Abreu” de Las Villas, in Cuba. He has acquired a Diploma in Modern and Contemporary Philosophy from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, and a Laudato Si’ Certificate in Compassion and Social Communication, from the Xavier University of Bhubaneshwar, India. He works as a correspondent for SIGNIS, the World Catholic Association for Communication, and participated in the SIGNIS Communication Laboratory based in Quito, Ecuador. He worked as a researcher and teacher for the “Manuel García-Garófalo” Diocesan Library in Santa Clara, Cuba, where he founded the Academic Project Humanitas. His novel El libro de mis muertos won the Foundation Award of the City of Santa Clara, in Cuba. Recently, the AISGE Foundation in Madrid granted him the Paco Rabal Award of Cultural Journalism for his article “Cuba in seven films”, published in Brussels.
Lawrence John Sinniah, Malaysia
Lawrence John Sinniah aka eLJay is currently serving his second term as vice-president of SIGNIS world and heads the Communications Lab. He holds the position as Executive Director with Public Media Agency, an NGO based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Eljay studied advertising in 1986 in Kuala Lumpur and graduated magna cum laude in Mass Communications from Waldorf University, IA, USA in 1998.
Moderator: Amalia Sabiescu, Loughborough University London
Talk: EMPATHY
March 17th, 2021, 10h (São Paulo, 13h (Londres)
“Empathy goes beyond generosity. In Freire’s vision of development, there is no room for charity in the sense of classifying those in need as lacking capacity or being disabled in any way. Rather the principle of empathy is a form of recognizing different points of departure that make it harder for some to reaching their goals. The principle of empathy recognizes inequalities and takes them as collective issues rather than a matter of individual effort or merit. Need, or being in need, is a sign of domination of some over others. Empathy is then required to trigger a change that will provide the dominated with what is necessary to break this cycle of oppression.” (Suzina & Tufte, 2020, p.414, accessible here)
Linje Manyozo, RMIT University, Australia
Linje Manyozo is a student of the human condition, whose praxis involves demobilizing the pervasiveness of the Emperor’s phallus as a way to undermine the discourses and structures of inequality. In his idealism, Linje’ work, informed by liberatory theology, places God at the centre of the subaltern’s efforts to integrate citizen voices in development policy formulation and implementation. Linje’s work celebrates the making of love to the world (fazendo amor com o mundo).
Currently, Dr Linje Manyozo teaches in RMIT’s College of Design and Social Context.
Linje has published three books: Communicating Development With Communities (Routledge, 2017); Media, Communication and Development (Sage, 2013) and People’s Radio (Southbound, 2012). His latest work, Wisdom of Water (2022), celebrates God and indigenous wisdom as foundation stones for working with people. Linje’s people-centred work is summarised in “Pedagogy of Listening” where he emphasizes that development is about working with God so as to make love to people.
James Deane, BBC Media Action, United Kingdom
James Deane is Head of Policy at BBC Media Action, the charity set up by the BBC to support media around the world and advance international development. He is also currently working as a consultant to Luminate, a philanthropic foundation, to develop an International Fund for Public Interest Media.
Moderator: Sharon Prendeville, Loughborough University London
Talk: HOPE
March 18th, 2021, 10h (São Paulo), 13h (Londres)
“the principle of hope is about trusting a new just social order as the horizon to pursue, like in Eduardo Galeano’s vision of utopia where every step towards it makes it move a step away, under the golden purpose of keeping one walking (Galeano, 2013). Hope is both the principle and the rule with which to achieve a critical view and a permanent search for change: ‘Freire’s work represents the communicative politics of hope – the notion that humans can change themselves and transform social conditions in order to produce a more just society’ (Waisbord, 2020). Thereby, Waisbord argues, a Freirean approach becomes a source of democratic resilience. Consequently, the opposite of asymmetry is not symmetry but is justice and coexistence in the sense of carving out space for different forms of being and understanding.” (Suzina & Tufte, 2020, p.415, accessible here)
Benjamin Ferron, Université Paris 12 Créteil, France
Benjamin Ferron is a French sociologist, PhD in Political Science and Lecturer in Political Communication at East-Paris University (Céditec EA3119). He teaches and conducts research in sociology of journalism, social movements media, communication for social change, public problems, Bourdieu’s field theory and methodology of social sciences. His fieldworks includes the French “Free Media” movement, an international comparison between the Zapatista’s transnational mediactivists network and the anti-occupation mobilizations (Israeli-Palestinian conflict), the journalistic construction of the indoor air pollution problem in France, and the precariousness of French “alternative” journalists. He publishes in French, English and Spanish, and translated Rodney Benson and James C. Scott. His current projects include the collective book Giving Voice to the “Voiceless”? Social and discursive construction of a Public Problem (with E. Née & C. Oger, 2021). He coordinates since 2017 the “Media Sociology” Network of the French Association of Sociology (RT37).
Links/List of recent or relevant publications
Eriberto Gualinga Montalvo, indigenous filmaker, Ecuador
Eriberto Gualinga Montalvo is a director of documentaries, photography and music in the defence of the Amazon and human rights. He has been working with audiovisuals for 20 years and his works have been exhibited in many festivals around the world, winning the Paco Urondo, and National Geographic prizes among others.
Moderator: Burçe Çelik, Lourghborough University London
Talk: HUMILITY
March 23th, 2021, 10 am (Sao Paulo) / 1 pm (London)
“Freire places humility as a specific requirement to recognize that people – any people – are knowledgeable. Dialogue, achieved through communication and with humility, becomes a place of encounter in everyday life, where knowledge is constructed and reconstructed on a permanent basis. (…) However, humility suggests that the authentic truth does not belong to any one individual or group, nor is it imposed by one group upon another. Authentic truth – or the authentic word, in Freire’s terminology – is rather an outcome of a permanent exercise of action and reflection that takes into account the reality and the perspective of each part (Suzina, 2019).” (Suzina & Tufte, 2020, p.414, accessible here)
Anita Gurumurthy, IT for Change, India
Anita Gurumurthy is a founding member and executive director of IT for Change (ITfC) where she leads research on emerging issues in the digital context such as the platform economy, data and AI governance, democracy in the digital age and feminist frameworks on digital justice. She also directs ITfC’s field resource centre that works with grassroots rural communities on ‘technology for social change’ models. Anita actively engages in national and international advocacy on digital rights and contributes regularly to academic and media spaces.
Colin Chasi, University of the Free State, South Africa
Colin Chasi is Professor and Director of the Unit for Institutional Change and Social Justice at the University of the Free State, in South Africa. He writes on the decolonisation of the discipline. With grounding in quintessential African thought, he is pursuing what he terms Participation Studies.
Moderator: Jo Tacchi, Loughborough University London
Closing Plenary, AILTON KRENAK
Closing Plenary: Pisar suavemente sobre a terra: towards a pedagogy of coexistence
March 24th, 2021, 10h (São Paulo), 13h (Londres)
Ailton Krenak, indigenous human rights activist, Brazil
Photograph: Sérgio Cohn
Ailton Krenak, indigenous human rights activist, was born in 1953, in the Doce River Valley, Minas Gerais, and belongs to the Krenak ethnic group. In 1987, in the context of the discussions of the Constituent Assembly, he led the struggle for several principles inscribed in the Federal Constitution of Brazil. He founded and directs the Nucleus of Indigenous Culture, created the Festival of Dances and Indigenous Cultures, in the 1990s, in Serra do Cipó (MG). Journalist, presenter of the series “Índios no Brasil” for TV Educativa in 1998, and the series with indigenous thematic “Tarú Andé” for TV-Canal Futura in 2007. Author of texts and articles published in collections in Brazil and abroad. In January 2016, he was awarded the diploma of ´Professor Honoris Causa´ by the Federal University of Juiz de Fora-UFJF.
In 1987, he received the Letellier Moffite International Human Rights Award for Latin America from the Letellier Foundation in Washington DC. In 1989, he received the prestigious Onassis Award – Man and Society, from the Aristotle Onassis Foundation, in Athens-Greece. In 2005, he received the National Human Rights Award – Brazil; in 2008 the Order of the Order of Cultural Merit of Brazil; and in 2015, the Grand Cross of the Order of Cultural Merit of Brazil.
Moderator: Ana Cristina Suzina, Loughborough University London
Communities of Local Exchange
The Communities of Local Exchange constitute local groups in different parts of the world, who accepted to join and extend this programme of reflections to their own realities. They are different in nature and purposes, and they are organized according to their possibilities, conditions and intentions. The basic idea of these communities is to echo the Global Dialogues exploring how one, a couple or all of them make sense in their own contexts.
Profesor Karin Wilkins and Profesor Jyotika Ramaprasad will co-teach a course from August to November 2021 gathering different members of faculty and networked communities. The programme will take the Paulo Freire Centennial as a starting point, including readings and other inputs, to discuss Freire’s contributions to media and communication studies locally.
Profesor Cicilia Peruzzo will lead a session of her research group Comuni taking from one of the talks of Paulo Freire Centennial. The topic will be discussed from the perspective of scholars dealing with popular, community and alternative communication in different regions of Brazil.
Professor Raquel Paiva will offer the module “Comprehensive Epistemology in Paulo Freire – Linking, Communication and Sensitive”, including the contents of this Paulo Freire Centennial in the consultation and debate material with students. The course, offered in the graduate programs in Communication at the Federal and State Universities of Rio de Janeiro, intends to present strategic points of Freire’s thought for communication and from them to draw lines of force capable of discussing Brazil today. Classes begin on May 5, 2021.
