Anne Hope (February 12, 1930 – December 26, 2015)

Sally Timmel, The Cape Times

Anne Hope, co-author and founder of the classic Training for Transformation books and training programmes, has passed on in an interfaith intentional community in Claremont, California.

Anne Hope was born and grew up in Johannesburg. She attended Rhodes University in Grahamstown and obtained a degree in English literature and history. She then received her Master’s degree in education from Oxford University in England. During her university days, she immersed herself in the Catholic Student Movement and not only became convinced of the horrors of apartheid, but became more and more committed both emotionally and spiritually to the struggle for liberation.

Praxis & the Work of Building Counter-Power

Richard Pithouse

In the ‘70s and ‘80s the idea of praxis was often taken seriously in the process of building the organisations, movements and unions that undertook the work of developing the counter-power of the oppressed. Praxis was often understood as more than just the idea that effective political work required reflection on action, and action guided by reflection. It was also an idea with democratic and ethical dimensions.

Paulo Freire: it is necessary to trust in the oppressed and in their ability to reason

Paulo Freire

The insistence that the oppressed engage in reflection on their concrete situation is not a call  to armchair revolution. On the contrary reflection — true reflection — leads to action. On the other hand, when the situation calls for action, that action will constitute an authentic praxis only if its consequences become the object of critical reflection. In this sense, the praxis is the new raison d’être of the oppressed; and the revolution, which inaugurates the historical moment of this raison d’être, is not viable apart from their concomitant conscious involvement. Otherwise, action is pure activism.

'Unlearning' hegemony : an exploration of the applicability of Alain Badiou's theory of the event to informal learning through an examination of the life histories of South African social movement activists.

Anne Harley, 2012

This thesis argues that it is both necessary and possible to change the world. Changing the world requires engaging with, to try to understand it from the basis of lived reality, and then acting. Our ability to do this is, however, affected by hegemony, which attempts to convince us that the way things are is either normal and natural and the only possible way they could be, or that it is impossible to change them. Nevertheless, there is always resistance to this and I suggest that we might learn something useful by examining how this happens. The thesis thus explores Gramsci’s theory of hegemony, and its applicability to our current world; and also considers resistance to this. I argue that the nature of capitalism has shifted, and discuss how this shift has impacted on hegemony, identifying three current interlocking hegemonic ideologies. I consider current resistance to this hegemony, including the role of social movements. Much resistance, and many social movements, I argued, cannot properly be called counter-hegemonic in that, although it/they may critique the dominant economic system, it/they remain trapped within hegemonic logic. However, it is clear that there is existing truly counter-hegemonic resistance, including some social movements, and I argue that Abahlali baseMjondolo is one such counter-hegemonic movement. Thus it is possible that those who join/align themselves with this movement might be considered to have ‘unlearned’ hegemony and be useful subjects for this study. I thus consider the life stories of seven people who have aligned themselves to this movement, in order to determine whether they have indeed ‘unlearned’ hegemony, and if so, how.

“We Are Poor, Not Stupid”: Learning From Autonomous Grassroots Social Movements in South Africa - Anne Harley

“WE ARE POOR, NOT STUPID”: LEARNING FROM AUTONOMOUS GRASSROOTS SOCIAL MOVEMENTS IN SOUTH AFRICA by TigersEye99

Seeing Through Paulo's Glasses: Political Clarity, Courage and Humility

Paulo Freire on the influence of Fanon

“I remember, for example, how much I was helped by reading Frantz Fanon. That is great writing. When I read Fanon I was in exile in Chile. A young man who was in Santiago on a political task gave me the book, The Wretched of the Earth. I was writing Pedagogy of the Oppressed, and the book was almost finished when I read Fanon. I had to rewrite the book in order to begin to quote Fanon” (Horton & Freire, 1990, p.36).

Horton, M., & Freire, P. (1990). We make the road by walking: Conversations on education and social change. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.

The radical, committed to human liberation .....

“The radical, committed to human liberation, does not become the prisoner of a 'circle of certainty' within which reality is also imprisoned. On the contrary, the more radical the person is, the more fully he or she enters into reality so that, knowing it better, he or she can better transform it. This individual is not afraid to confront, to listen, to see the world unveiled. This person is not afraid to meet the people or to enter into dialogue with them. This person does not consider himself or herself the proprietor of history or of all people, or the liberator of the oppressed; but he or she does commit himself or herself, within history, to fight at their side.”

― Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed

Rejecting Academic Labor as a Subaltern Class: Learning from Paulo Freire and the Politics of Critical Pedagogy

by Henry Giroux, Fast Capitalism

While liberals, progressives, and left-oriented educators have increasingly opposed the right-wing assault on higher education, they have not done enough either theoretically or politically in connecting the issues of academic freedom, the proliferation of non-tenured and part-time faculty, and the state of critical pedagogy in the university. Although concern has been expressed about the shameless exploitation of non-tenured and part-time faculty in the United States (actually, an under-the-radar parallel alternative to the traditional tenure system), such concerns have not been linked to a full-spirited critique of the anti-democratic forces now affecting higher education through the relentless expansion of a growing managerialism and a neoliberal approach to university governance.[1]

Why Paulo Freire’s “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” is just as relevant today as ever

Sima Barmania, The Independent

Frantz Fanon, Iconic psychiatrist and author of books such as “Wretched of the Earth”, wrote that “literature increasingly involves itself in its only real task, which is to get society to reflect and mediate”.

Paulo Freire’s landmark book, “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” is a prime example of literature that makes one reflect, cogitate and ponder all at once.

Pedagogy of the Oppressed

To the oppressed, and to those who suffer with them
and fight at their side

- dedication of Pedagogy of the Oppressed

First published in Portuguese in 1968, Pedagogy of the Oppressed was translated and published in English in 1970. The methodology of the late Paulo Freire has helped to empower countless impoverished and illiterate people throughout the world. Freire’s work has taken on especial urgency in the United States and Western Europe, where the creation of a permanent underclass among the underprivileged and minorities in cities and urban centers is increasingly accepted as the norm.

Pedagogy of the Oppressed: Chapter One

The first chapter of Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970). The full text of the book is online here.

While the problem of humanization has always, from an axiological point of view, been humankind's central problem, it now takes on the character of an inescapable concern. (1) Concern for humanization leads at once to the recognition of dehumanization, not only as an ontological possibility but as an historical reality. And as an individual perceives the extent of dehumanization, he or she may ask if humanization is a viable possibility. Within history, in concrete, objective contexts, both humanization and dehumanization are possibilities for a person as an uncompleted being conscious of their incompletion.

Pedagogy of the Oppressed: Chapter Two

The second chapter of Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970). The full text of the book is online here.

A careful analysis of the teacher-student relationship at any level, inside or outside the school, reveals its fundamentally narrative character. This relationship involves a narrating Subject (the teacher) and patient listening objects (the students). The contents, whether values or empirical dimensions of reality, tend in the process of being narrated to become lifeless and petrified. Education is suffering from narration sickness.
The teacher talks about reality as if it were motionless, static, compartmentalized, and predictable. Or else he expounds on a topic completely alien to the existential experience of the students. His task is to "fill" the students with the contents of his narration -- contents which are detached from reality, disconnected from the totality that engendered them and could give them significance. Words are emptied of their concreteness and become a hollow, alienated, and alienating verbosity.

Paulo Friere on sectarianism

From the preface to The Pedagogy of the Oppressed

‘...[C]losing themselves into “circles of certainty” from which they cannot escape, these individuals “make” their own truth. It is not the truth of men and women who struggle to build the future, running the risks involved in this very construction. Nor is it the truth of men and women who fight side by side and learn together how to build the future - which is not something given to be received by people, but is rather something to be created by them. Both types of sectarianism [left & right], treating history in an equally proprietary fashion, end up without the people - which is another way of being against them.’

Paulo Freire

Pedagogy of the Oppressed: Excerpt from Chapter One

by Paulo Freire, 1970

Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed has been described as a response to Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth. The full text of this book is online here. The first part of the first chapter is below. 

Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Chapter One.

While the problem of humanization has always, from an axiological point of view, been humankind’s central problem, it now takes on the character of an inescapable concern.[1] Concern for humanization leads at once to the recognition of dehumanization, not only as an ontological possibility but as an historical reality And as an individual perceives the extent of dehumanization, he or she may ask if humanization is a viable possibility. Within history in concrete, objective contexts, both humanization and dehumanization are possibilities for a person as an uncompleted being conscious of their incompletion.