In autumn 1943, in the midst of a burning world war, the map of South America is literally re-drawnâor better still: one map. JoaquĂn Torres-GarcĂa, a Uruguayan artist and theorist, has finalized in his studio what is set to become his most renowned work of art: AmĂ©rica invertida . With black ink, on a sheet of paper, he had drawn the âNew World,â the continent beyond the historically perceived FinistĂšre in Bretagne; the landmass that was inscribed on European maps in 1492. In accordance with the Renaissance atlases, this one is also decorated with symbols: A fish, the moon, the sun, stars and a sailing ship are all strategically deployed along the South American continent. Represented as a Terra nullius devoid of borders, unfettered by indications of location, Torres-GarcĂa has made one single exception by drawing, with anything but a steady hand, two latitudinal lines on which the coordination for his hometown, Montevideo, has been scribbled across one and the equator close to the other. Here any similarities with conventional conceptions of the world map cease. The italicized âSâ that distinctively marks the cardinal direction is not found at the near bottom of the map: Instead, it balances on the tip of the continentâa southern peak that here points toward the north. Now we realize that this is not a conventional map. In relation to those, this one would be considered to be upside downâindeed, even incorrect. In all its simplicity, then, Torres-GarcĂaâs map is anything but unassuming: upside-down America, foiled America, Inverted America.
The subtle logic that characterizes this piece of art is awareness of the mapâs substantially fictive status and the power geographical representations possess in producing and construing the world. The effect that Torres-GarcĂaâs map has on many of us, its instinctive evocation of the view of being upside down, illustrates the mapâs rhetorical power where the name puts the different parts of the world, its continents, in their spaceââSouth Americaâ denotes not only the continentâs geographical location but also who gave rise to its name. European Renaissance cartographers performed an act that the world since then has complied with; a deed that in the name of factuality itself creates the world it believes to be neutrally representing. By tweaking those fixed markers against which we orientate ourselves AmĂ©rica invertida introduced another perspective, the view from the south, a possible southern hemisphere outlook on the world. What the rotation produces is a questioning of from where the representation of the continent derives; a subversive reminder of how the conventional atlas tends to coincide with a strict European outlook on the world.
Torres-GarcĂaâs artwork can equally serve as a metaphor, although on a modest scale, for the purpose of this collection of essays: Educational Alternatives in Latin America : New Modes of Counter-Hegemonic Learning is a collection of original essays by scholars from a variety of geographical contexts, disciplinary backgrounds and theoretical perspectives on educational alternatives, outside mainstream education, setting out to challenge, combat or merely point out other possible directions. On the one hand, many Latin American countriesâas in other parts of the worldâhave experienced modernizing educational reforms under the influence of neoliberal governing and market principles where standardization, accountability and the control over knowledge override social, cultural and linguistic differences (Henales & Edwards, 2002; LĂłpez Guerra & Flores, 2006; Walsh, 2015). These policies derive from the broader context of governmental policies targeting various spheres of the economic and social life of most Latin American countries with their aim to decentralize, privatize and enhance competition. On the other hand, after the long years of military dictatorships, civil wars and economic instability, diverse academic commentators are singling out the region as the foremost site in the world of counter-hegemonic processes (cf. Escobar, 2010; Guardiola-Rivera, 2010). Over the last decades, several Latin American communities, in different parts of the region, have strongly countered the implementation of neoliberal policies by forming some of the most dynamic and organized forms of resistance: from the landless movements in Brazil to the Zapatistas in the Chiapas region of Mexico, from the piqueteros in Argentina to the Movimento al Socialismo in Bolivia, to mention but a few. This holds equally true in the fields of education and higher education where student movements and teacher mobilizations have been at the forefront of social resistance to neoliberalism. Additionally, diverse Latin American countries have given birth to and nurtured a truly endogenous educational approach which has become known as popular education. In many cases, the movements of resistance have developed their own particular brand of popular education as an expression of counter-hegemonic resilience, which has also, in some cases, been accompanied and supported by expressions of the liberation theology movement engendered by the Catholic Church.
Apart from the sustained impact that the works of Paulo Freire have had on education in general and popular education in particular far beyond his native Brazil, other counter-hegemonic processes have generated a new vocabulary. Several of these concepts such as âplurinationality,â âinterculturalityâ and â buen vivir â are discussed in more detail by, among others, Catherine Walsh, Anders Burman and Nelly Stromquist, in different chapters of this anthology, but we may also add socialismo del siglo XXI (âsocialism of the twenty-first centuryâ) and revoluciĂłn ciudadana (âcitizen revolutionâ). What unifies several of these concepts is their geopolitical and bodypolitical dimension against the backdrop of Americaâs colonial past. Several of these concepts reflect ideas from people in the indigenous movements in Latin America who, for all their possible internal disparities, share the conviction that the legacies of colonialism are not only experienced along economic and political dimensions but also along knowledge lines. According to Ănibal Quijano (1989), the inscription of the American continent onto European maps meant the abolition of existing local rationalities, which he contends are an alternative epistemology attuned to the experiences of the indigenous peoples of the region. Put differently, the hierarchies instilled by imperialism disqualified colonized populations in different corners of the world from being capable of intellectual labor. Whether the site of production is in the West or elsewhere, then, the knowledge accredited with status as âscientific,â âtruthfulâ and âuniversalâ tends to be that created by the modern human and natural sciences, sciences deriving from the European Enlightenment and modernity (cf. Chakrabarty, 2000; Mignolo, 2002; Spivak, 1988). As a direct consequence of the ways in which certain forms of knowing the world hold sway at the expense of others it is important to keep in mind that on the other side of epistemological dominance is epistemological inferiority.
Education has been pivotal in reproducing these differences. After all, as Pierre Bourdieu (1977) reminds us, the education system conducts an act of symbolic violence as it legitimizes certain forms of knowledges at the expense of others. Having been represented as inferior, indigenous people in Latin America have not been in a position to present their own epistemic credentials, much less judge European ones (Alcoff, 2007). Against this background, then, it comes as no surprise that education in Latin America, not least historically, carries resemblance to the European systems. To use the words of Irma Salas (1964, 73), âEducation in Latin America still follows closely its European tradition. It provides a broad humanistic culture, mainly literary and academic, leading to university studies.â The biography of higher education in Latin America carries a similar history as the university model was first transferred to the region by the newly installed European masters during the sixteenth century. In this process, institutions of higher education were not invented de novo to accommodate the populations already inhabiting the continent before European arrival; rather they were implants from the European university tradition and its stocks (RĂŒegg, 1996).
This is not to suggest, however, the inexistence of practices of resistance. On the contrary, conventional academic disciplines and scientific practices were contested, and, in certain contexts, at times even challenged by other ways of producing knowledge. Over centuries of colonial oppression âknowledge otherwiseâ (Escobar, 2007), âsubaltern epistemologiesâ (Spivak, 1988) or âborder gnosisâ (Mudimbe, 1988) have persistently been generated from within concrete and situated practices, struggles and experiences. From around Latin America, central concepts such as â buen vivir ,â âplurinationality,â âinterculturalityâ or something else are only a few of the many concepts that seek to provide a name for the ongoing events toward post-liberal societies. Subsequently, such notions have also been assimilated by and interacted with educational discourses producing their own specific terminology in which terms such as dialogue, conscientization or critical awareness, praxis, participation, class mediation, empowerment, emancipatory or transformative education are central. In some cases, as for example Nicaragua in the 1980s, such concepts and practices found their way into educational policies on distinct national levels. Perhaps the most evident current example is that of Bolivia where Evo Morales, when elected the nationâs first indigenous president in 2005, went so far as to declare the need to âdecolonize education.â In his 2006 inaugural address, he declared that â[t]he best way to decolonize Bolivia is to recover our culture and ways of living,â which draws attention to the forms in which certain ways of life, realities and knowledges have historically been suppressed within the framework of the nation-state. And educational policies have been key in devaluing indigenous knowledges and ways of life (Aman, 2015). As âfruits of the conquest,â Peruvian author JosĂ© Carlos MariĂĄtegui (1975, 87) writes, the educational systems in the Andean nations have âa colonial rather than a national character. When the state refers to the Indians in its educational programs, it treats them as an inferior race.â In defying the idea of âthe two Boliviasââone modern, civilized and knowledgeable of European descendent; one of backward, ignorant and uncivilized indigenous peopleâepistemology is at the center of indigenous activism and state politics of decolonization alike by drawing attention to, as in Moralesâ aforementioned speech, a desire to emancipate the educational system from Western influences. Moreover, there is also an ongoing and highly polemical discussion in Brazil concerning the approval of a national policy of popular education seen as a method of government articulated with a national policy of social participation (Ireland, 2014).
Since the project for this collection of essays was first conceived and accepted for publication, there has been a distinct swing to the right in several North and South American countries, as Walsh indicates in the Afterword to her chapter. Discussions in Brazil concerning the creation of a national policy of popular education seen as a method of government articulated with a national policy of social participation have been completely abandoned after the âwhite coupâ which removed President Dilma Rousseff from office in August 2016. This apparent âthreatâ to the establishment was linked with the campaign described by Walsh to denigrate the image of Paulo Freire by, among other means, tampering with his biography published in the online encyclopedia Wikipedia. Among initial measures announced by the incoming government are alterations to the structure and curriculum of secondary education, making disciplines like Sociology, Philosophy, Arts and Physical Education non-obligatory and proposals to limit the number of students accessing higher education. In the field of youth and adult literacy, the goal for the Literate Brazil Program in 2017 is to enroll 250,000 students. During the course of the ...