“In the digital world of learning there is a progressive transformation from the institutionalized and individualized forms of learning to open learning and collaboration. The book provides a view on the use of new technologies and learning practices in furthering socially just futures, while at the same time paying critical attention to the constants, or “unmoved movers” of the information society development; the West and Capitalism. The essential issue in the Wikiworld is one of freedom – levels and kinds of freedom. Our message is clear: we write for the radical openness of education for all.”
Our p2p network member Tere Vaden has created an important new book with Juha Suoranta:
Book: Wikiworld: Political Economy of Digital Literacy, and the Road from Social to Socialist Media. Juha Suoranta – Tere Vadén.
The book is copylefted and you can get your hands of the text here at http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiworld or order it via Amazon.
Here is a snippet from the introduction, from Juha Suoranta and Tere Vadén:
“In the following pages we will argue that the Wikiworld – a set of collaborative practices on the Net as defined below – will advance peoples’ autonomy, self-government and actual freedom. The Wikiworld is a system of collective processes rather than a system of ready-made facts given from above, from those who believe that they know better than the rest of us. Wikiworld is an empowering social construction with positive effects for both political and epistemological democracy and, as we believe, eventually it has a potential to abolish the distinction between the rulers and the ruled. By theorising the basic tenets of the Wikiworld our aim is to advance the world in which this apparently perpetual division is no longer necessary, and can be seen, as Gramsci once said, only as “a historical fact corresponding to certain conditions” (Gramsci 1971, 44). Thus we focus on these “certain conditions” by claiming that Wikiworld’s central characteristics and practices, those of voluntary participation, sharing and anonymous collectivism, are practices of actual freedom.
By the notion of Wikiworld we refer both to the technical and social spheres of the Internet; more specifically to those social formations and political struggles that can be enforced by the possibilities of the Net. And more than that: from our point of view the Wikiworld, and its phenomena, is not sufficiently scrutinised if not seen in the larger socio-political context through the lens of radical political economy. From this angle the Wikiworld is also an ideological battlefield, and the stakes are high: in question are the very ways in which we conceive of the digital sphere and its physical counterparts.
Current international and national trends in educational policies emphasising educational qualifications, competition and marketisation of higher education are too narrow and repressive to last. They distort learning and research just as the notions of “German” and “Soviet” science did in their time. In contrast, internationally open and free scientific activity benefits all people and nations equally; otherwise it does not deserve to be called science. But openness is a challenge for closed educational and other systems; it forces educational authorities – public and private alike – to abandon short-sighted monetary aims.
In a fundamental sense, the social and digital collaborative sphere, the Wikiworld, is anarchistic in its very nature. This means that we cannot channel, control or predict the future of the Wikiworld in advance. But we can offer insights, ideas and collaborative productions which at best can free our minds from the restrictions of the closed system logics. To say that the Wikiworld is anarchistic is not to deny that it is also overdetermined, that is, its development is caused by the multiple actions of the multiple actors. To paraphrase philosopher J. L. Austin (1911–1960), the question on the Wikiworld is not only How To Do Things with Words, but also How To Do Things with Edits, Saves, Uploads, Downloads, Histories, Revisions, and Discussions.”