The Ivan Illich Learning Web

AERA Conference 2010, Call For Papers / Panels: Ivan Illich SIG (#161)

We invite papers related to how Illich might respond to this year’s AERA theme, Understanding Complex Ecologies in a Changing World. From Illich’s perspective, the ideas of “ecosystem” and an “ecological worldview” were particularly seductive. While they appeared to represent part of a movement to protect life from industrial destructiveness, he ultimately suspected that “ecology” was part of a systematic movement to manage both nature and people’s lives in accordance with the abstractions of an administrative class of professional experts. For Illich, then, complex ecologies were undoubtedly changing the world but not necessarily for the better! Papers relevant to our SIG might then involve, though not be limited to, analyses and/or critiques of:

• The Manner in Which Curricula or School Systems Represent a Global Ecology of Education
• Education for Sustainable Development Policies and Practices as Representing or Intending Complex Ecological Outcomes
• Ecology, conceived as a Scientific Standard and New Knowledge Paradigm
• Media/Information Ecologies
• The Differences Between Political and Cultural Ecologies That Organize Nature as a Commons versus Nature as a Productive Resource
• Place-Based Forms of Education or Cultural Experience
• The Ways in Which Industrial Cultures Entail Different Life Expectations and Possibilities than Pre or Post-Industrial Cultures
• The Different Knowledge Ecologies Made Possible by Alternative Educational Institutions
• How Health, Medical, and Other Social Institutions Currently Produce an Ecology of Well-Being (or Unwell-Being)
• And, How Global Social Systems Frame, Integrate, or Otherwise Constrain Lived Experiences of the Local in Either a Contemporary or Historical Context

Please note: we are also happy to accept paper and panel proposals that extend beyond the scope of the specific call for papers issued here.

Important Announcements

* Call for Submissions will be posted on May 15, 2009
* Online Submission System will Open June 1, 2009
* Paper & Session Submissions: Deadline July 15, 2009

If you have any questions about a possible proposal for the Ivan Illich SIG, please feel free to contact our SIG Chair, Richard Kahn (rvkahn@gmail.com).

The Ivan Illich SIG’s sessions were especially well attended this AERA, and we have a number of exciting SIG developments that are underway — such as the continued development of this website, such that will become the ultimate archive for Illich-related work, as well as a peer-reviewed International Journal of Illich Studies with a first issue expected as soon as September, 2009.

But, despite all this, WE MUST INCREASE MEMBERSHIP immediately in order to ensure the SIG’s good standing with AERA.

So I’m wondering if you would please help support our new initiatives by taking a moment RIGHT AWAY to become a dues paying member?

It is only $6 for faculty and $4 for students. SIG membership provides a number of opportunities. For starters, you can have your bio and picture listed here on the SIG’s website, promote your recent work, and find like-minded community for projects. Further, SIG membership provides an opportunity to be an editorial board member of the new International Journal of Illich Studies that is being established.

PLEASE, in these dark times, we need more than ever to hear Illich’s critical perspectives on society and schooling and moral perspectives on friendship and love…

I reach out to you in common cause to help preserve a space within AERA where we can share serious ideas about the preservation of the commons.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me. For your convenience I am enclosing instructions on how to sign up for the SIG on the AERA website below.

Join the Ivan Illich SIG (#161)

Our dues are a mere $6 per year, or $4 per year for students. Please take a moment to join our SIG and support the initiative.

In order to join any AERA SIG, please log on to the membership section of AERA by clicking on “Member Login” in the upper left corner of the this page. On the Members Welcome page, under “Purchases”, click on “Special Interest Groups”. Follow the directions to register for SIG membership. To learn about AERA Membership, please visit the AERA Membership page. Current members may also download a SIG Membership Form.

Much thanks,

Richard Kahn
Chair, Ivan Illich SIG