Abstract
In reviewing some of the particular contexts in which hundreds of thousands of Argentineans have been organizing and educating themselves around and after the time of the country’s recent historical crisis, I will be looking at relevant work done by researchers and educators paying special attention at those coming from South America, and, in particular, from Argentina. The intention of this article is to look critically into the exceptional socio-cultural-political conditions that enable Argentinean “crisis” new movement groups to seek out and practice uncompromising, autonomous ways of adult and collective non-formal and informal education.
Highlights
Argentina, a country that after World War II was considered the “grain supplier of the world,” and the nation that at one time had one of the most stable social systems, collapsed socio-politically and economically in a very dramatic fashion following 2000
If the educational experiences of these Argentinean crisis groups are characterized by autonomy and independence from established institutional and political interests and powers, it is evident that these groups will not use formal systems of education but, rather, will use informal and non-formal ones
How has the informal education been implemented by the participants of these movements? Besides the highly valuable informal learning that happens in the lives of citizens as they organize themselves to attend to their basic survival needs members of piqueteros, or assembly organizations, organized their education with more intentionality and started asking the popular educators to organize immediate and needed areas of learning
Summary
A country that after World War II was considered the “grain supplier of the world,” and the nation that at one time had one of the most stable social systems (under the Peronist era), collapsed socio-politically and economically in a very dramatic fashion following 2000. A shaky Argentinean government sequestered the savings of the once dominant and strong middle class, immediately sending this large group of people to join the already growing poor and destitute underclass. An almost immediate collective response to the crisis arose, followed by the quick formation of an unprecedented social movement that managed to depose five country Presidents in a single week, but that led to the creation of a new form of socio-economic-organizational survival that surprised Argentinean crisis analysts around the world (Lodola, 2003; Klein, 2003). This paper discusses characteristics of this movement and should provide insight into the unique historical formation of a citizens’ informal and autonomous education movement
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