Covid-19 and Mutual Aid: prefigurative approaches to caring?

The growth of mutual aid has been amongst the more positive outcomes of the Covid-19 pandemic. So much for the neoliberal view of humans as rational individuals, focused on the pursuit of their own self-interests, whatever the needs of others. The phenomenal growth of mutual aid initiatives has not been confined to Britain either. On the contrary, in fact. Tens of thousands of mutual aid networks and projects have emerged throughout the world. Whilst recognising and warmly celebrating their achievements, this article sets these within the framework of wider debates about civil society and the future of the Welfare State, within the context of increasing marketisation.  &nbsp

Radical popular education today. Popular education in populist times

Popular education is more needed than ever. The Covid 19 pandemic has been highlighting the challenges of widening inequalities, increasing exploitation and oppression, along with persistent xenophobia and violence against women and minority communities. Yet popular education faces threats of its own, and resources have been on the decline, precisely when they have become so urgently required in the contemporary context. Whilst acknowledging these threats, the article goes on to focus on some of the ways in which popular education initiatives have continued to be promoted despite these wider challenges. ‘The World Transformed’ (TWT) has provided evidence of just such initiatives in Britain.The conclusions of TWT’s research resonate with Paulo Freire’s own reflections in the final section of ‘The Pedagogy of Hope’. Despite the challenges he continued to look forward to the future with hope. (DIPF/Orig.

Active Learning for Active Citizenship: participatory approaches to evaluating a programme to promote citizen participation in England

Just as the notion of participatory approaches has been subjected to questioning and criticism, so has the more specific notion of participatory approaches to monitoring and evaluation. There are parallel possibilities of tokenism and even of manipulation, here, just as there are parallels around the need for more critical reflection and dialogue. Even if not actually manipulative, participatory evaluation can involve little more than the occasional use of particular techniques from a participatory toolkit. This article draws upon our experiences of evaluating a participatory programme to promote active citizenship in England, starting from our shared commitment to achieve more than this. Building upon principles and experiences of best practice, the aim was to use participatory principles ‘in order to democratise social change’ (Cousins and Whitmore, 1998.7), addressing the challenges of putting participatory principles into practice right from the outset, through to the completion of the final report. We begin by summarising key arguments from previous debates. This sets the context for the discussion of our case study, as evaluators of this particular programme. Finally, we conclude by reflecting upon our experiences of working with some of the tensions inherent in the processes associated with participatory monitoring and evaluation, identifying similarities with as well as differences from Kate Newman’s conclusions, on the basis of her experiences in the global South

Social State: Exploding the scrounger myth

Blaming the victim is a tactic with a long and dishonourable history. The caricature of the ‘undeserving poor ‘ was precisely what the Beveridge Report set out to challenge, basing the Welfare State, in contrast, on the concept of universal rights and responsibilities for all. But the stigmatisation of welfare recipients as scroungers has continued as a recurrent theme in public policy debates, and especially so from the Thatcher years onwards. In the current situation, the financial crisis has been ideologically reworked, from an economic problem to a political problem, it has been argued: “how to allocate blame and responsibility for the crisis” (Clarke & Newman, 2012)

Access to Justice for Disadvantaged Communities

Access to justice for all, regardless of the ability to pay, has been a core democratic value. But this basic human right has come under threat through wider processes of restructuring, with an increasingly market-led approach to the provision of welfare. Professionals and volunteers in Law Centres in Britain are struggling to provide legal advice and access to welfare rights to disadvantaged communities. Drawing upon original research, this unique study explores how strategies to safeguard these vital services might be developed in ways that strengthen rather than undermine the basic ethics and principles of public service provision. The book explores how such strategies might strengthen the position of those who provide, as well as those who need, public services, and ways to empower communities to work more effectively with professionals and progressive organisations in the pursuit of rights and social justice agendas more widely

Identity, Life History and Commitment to Welfare

Using detailed extracts from two life histories, this article examines the nature of the personal identifications that often underpin the commitment of welfare workers to their jobs. We explore the paradox that it is those identifications such as class and gender, mediated through individual biography, that fix the ‘self as object’ and that also provide us with the resources for self-transformation. In this respect, the article not only throws light upon the psychical and emotional roots of commitment to the other, but also upon some of the impasses ‘identity theory’ currently finds itself in

Kom kim mapudunguaiñ waria mew A.1.2

Texto de enseñanza de mapududungun, de nivel A.1.2. (siguiendo los estándares del Marco Europeo Común de Referencia) que, a través del método comunicativo, pretende apoyar la revitalización lingüística del mapudungun en contextos urbanos.Fil: Mariano, Héctor. Universidad de Chile; ChileFil: Curín, Luisa. No especifíca;Fil: Hasler Sandoval, Felipe Daniel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Saavedra 15. Centro Argentino de Información Científica y Tecnológica; Argentina. Universidad de Chile; ChileFil: Antileo, Enrique. Universidad de Chile; ChileFil: Salazar, Andrea. Universidad de Chile; ChileFil: Ahumada, Arturo. No especifíca;Fil: Mayo, Simona. Universidad de Buenos Aires; ArgentinaFil: Vargas, Cristián. Universidad de Chile; ChileFil: Katiuska Vega. Universidad de Chile; ChileFil: Curin, Felipe. No especifíca;Fil: Huaiqui, Marjorie. No especifíca