From Manish Jain, Shikshantar, Rajasthan

SOME REFLECTIONS AND COMMITMENTS

The pre-conference, conference and post-conference, first and foremost, helped to deepen my insights on what it means to personally reclaim control over our my learning within the larger context of strengthening learning societies in South Asia. The process has also been very important in helping to identify several questions/debates/activities/partners which can be pursued for further developing the conditions to build learning societies in South Asia.

At the outset, I must admit that my participation in the formal conference was limited because I was in and out of the discussions dealing with logistical issues. Luckily, I had the opportunity to go through 35+ hours of video on the conference afterwards. Some of the themes which repeatedly underscored many of the discussions were swaraj, moving from frameworks of scarcity to abundance, the meaning of dialogue. Several concerns/opportunities emerged which I think are crucial for future discussions on learning societies and which I would like to explore further, including:

• How do we support/develop local alternative economies (particular non-cash)? What kinds of alternative currencies should be encouraged?

• How to support local artisans in ways that do not make them dependent on elites and the vulgarities of the global economy? How to strengthen the webs of interdependence between them and the local economies?

• What is the linkage between food and learning? How can we encourage more production of and support for local organic food? How do we re-establish relationships between city people and small farmers?

• How can we nurture each human being to become cultural co-creators, co-authors of their own meaning, producers of diverse community media? How do we reclaim our authentic senses of beauty and aesthetics?

• What harm has literacy programmes done to local communities, other ways of knowing, human minds, multiple identities? How can we support local languages without institutionalizing them?

• How do we generate more critical discussions around the role of Information and Communication Technologies in learning?

• How can we encourage diverse forms and spaces of play (outside of cricket and national sports) that encourages creativity, collaboration and dialogue?

• How can we more deeply understand joint-family structures and support them as collective learning spaces? What are the possibilities for strengthening intergenerational learning?

• How can we more deeply understand intra-caste and inter-caste relationships and support local ways of leadership, organizing, decision-making, wisdom?

• How do we develop learning communities which support the notion of zero-waste?

• In what ways doess the "civil society"/"human rights" framework stifle dissent, resistance, local forms of social organization/power and the emergence of new alternatives?

• How do we cross/break borders (official national ones as well as psychological) to strengthen learning relationships and learning opportunities?

I think that the strength of the conference was that several powerful friendships were built during the conference. People shared their personal lives, projects, talents, political views, dilemmas, passions, philosophies, etc. with each other. I see these deep relationships as a critical foundation for developing learning societies and for keeping learning societies from becoming just a set of empty/co-opted words.

Some of the activities that emerged (or became more clear) from the conference which I would like to commit myself to for the upcoming year are:

I would like to invite anyone interested to get involved in some of these with me (including those who were not able to make it to Udaipur). And share other ideas as well.

Thanks again to everyone for their energy and commitment.