(sorry, somehow this discussion is spread across two very similar mailing lists! Here's my reply to the commoning list just now).
On 15/12/2013 18:03, "a...@shsh.co.uk" <a...@shsh.co.uk> wrote: >I certainly don't want to criticise the idea of a cooperative university >and all the work you are doing at the SSC. However the fundamental >distinction between students and teachers is that the former have to pay >and the latter get paid. In my work as a professional this was a barrier >I found I could not overcome. My time was valuable, my clients time was >not. > > I'm just wondering if there is room to add on, perhaps as an option, a >space where students and teachers merge, where students are in charge of >what they learn, and may teach the teachers. Eg >http://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/oct/24/students-post-crash-econom >ics > This is very much what we're working on at Lincoln, both inside and outside the university. Students in the UK and elsewhere are continually being reconfigured into a peculiar kind of consumer who co-produces themselves as 'human capital' - an 'improved' form of the labour-power commodity. We've been working on a critique and an affront to this for a few years now. You can read about 'Student as Producer' here: http://studentasproducer.lincoln.ac.uk/ If this is of interest to you, I'd suggest reading this book chapter: The student as producer: reinventing the student experience in higher education http://eprints.lincoln.ac.uk/1675/ and then more of Mike Neary's later work to develop it: Student as producer: an institution of the common? [or how to recover communist/revolutionary science] http://josswinn.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/ELiSS0403A_Guest_paper.pdf Pedagogy of Excess: an alternative political economy of student life http://josswinn.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Pedagogy-of-Excess-preprint. pdf Student as Producer: A Pedagogy for the Avant-Garde; or, how do revolutionary teachers teach? http://josswinn.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/15-72-1-pb-1.pdf The Social Science Centre, Lincoln, take the ideas and the pedagogy of Student as Producer out of the university and, in one sense, is an attempt to develop it without the constraints of existing institutional forms. It's an experiment: http://www.radicalphilosophy.com/news/an-experiment-in-free-co-operative-hi gher-education As for co-operatives as a new model for higher education, I think it's worth pursuing this as a transitional model to a post-capitalist form of higher education institution. I've been trying to think about 'academic labour' and the university as a 'means of production' and extending this idea to co-operation. I posted some thoughts here: The association of free and equal producers http://josswinn.org/2013/06/the-association-of-free-and-equal-producers/ Notes towards a critique of Labour Managed Firms http://josswinn.org/2013/07/notes-towards-a-critique-of-labour-managed-firm s/ What is Academic labour? http://josswinn.org/2013/07/what-is-academic-labour/ My friend, Richard Hall (cc'd), also writes about this stuff, too: http://www.richard-hall.org/ All the best, Joss The University of Lincoln, located in the heart of the city of Lincoln, has established an international reputation based on high student satisfaction, excellent graduate employment and world-class research. The information in this e-mail and any attachments may be confidential. If you have received this email in error please notify the sender immediately and remove it from your system. Do not disclose the contents to another person or take copies. Email is not secure and may contain viruses. The University of Lincoln makes every effort to ensure email is sent without viruses, but cannot guarantee this and recommends recipients take appropriate precautions. The University may monitor email traffic data and content in accordance with its policies and English law. Further information can be found at: http://www.lincoln.ac.uk/legal. _______________________________________________ P2P Foundation - Mailing list http://www.p2pfoundation.net https://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation
