Workshops

 

Organising a workshop/event

Autonomous education, self-education, and learning how to learn are the initial actions to undoing oppression and interrupting the cycle of violence the capitalism steeps us in from birth. In self-organised spaces we can grow our awareness and skills to learn from everyone and from every situation life presents us. And we grow our resistance and we make real ‘the other world’ that is possible! Don’t wait – now is a good time to start!

We are happy to travel to you to do a workshop/event (eg, a film showing and workshop, or talk and workshop …). We expect the inviting group/person to organise publicity and makes all the local arrangements like finding a venue and hosting the collective, by which we mean reimbursing travel expenses, and if necessary providing a place to stay overnight and food while we are with you.

Contact: donduritolearningcollective@riseup.net

 

Description of workshops:

‘Calendars and Geographies: Histories of Resistance for the World in which many Worlds fit’

In different parts of the globe and in different cultures we think of time and space, and of ourselves in time and space, in different ways; this, the Zapatistas reminded us, is why we have ‘calendars’ and ‘geographies’. We look at our own histories of resistance as linked to the way in which we think about time and space — calendars and geographies–, and we engage with stories of others with whom we share affinities. We aim to become so aware of our past that we can explain our histories of resistance to people who think very differently than we do and with whom we share affinities, and that we listen to and connect with their histories of resistance without forcing them into our way of thinking

 

The Daily Practice of Building Autonomy

Every day through daily life practices the Zapatistas in Mexico are building a peaceful sustainable alternative. They are living concrete autonomous experiments in well and collectively-organized communities. And they have inspired several other deliberate experiments locally, nationally and internationally. National liberation movements against colonialism only succeed in re-creating and re-asserting the dominant capitalist, hierarchical, violent model. Zapatistas call this signing up to ‘Democracy Incorporated.’

 

‘Freedom According to the Zapatistas: Learning from the Zapatista little school’

The Zapatistas run a ‘little school’, where they introduce their solidarity brothers and sisters to their project of building autonomy. This workshop is based on the little school and the major areas covered in the little school: autonomous government and the good government councils, autonomy and the provision for basic rights such as healthcare, education, justice, and security; and the participation of women in government, and gender equality. We give an introduction to each area, and then we work on each of them individually, trying to bring together our calendar and geography with what we can learn from the communities in Chiapas.

 

‘The Seed of Dignity’

‘One cannot study dignity, one lives it or it dies.’ Dignity is inherent in all human beings, and the conditions under which we live in neoliberal capitalism violate dignity. This is very different to the notion of dignity of capitalist, consumerist societies, where dignity is bestowed on the human being by virtue of the conditions under which they live. In the workshop we identify examples and practices of human dignity, we think about how and when our dignity is being violated, how we can resist such violations, and how we can grow and foster dignity not as an accommodation to its violation, but as an alternative to it.

 

‘The True Word and The Gaze from Below: Art, Culture, Solidarity’

How can we respond to committed writing, thought, film, and video in a solidary way? It’s not up to writers, film-makers or artists to show us an ultimate ‘Truth’ or a ‘way out’, or to provide us with new leaders – committed creative works invite us to walk with them, and they walk with us in our struggles. We draw on Zapatista writings on the mirror, the gaze from below, speaking and listening, the true word; and on ‘walking by asking questions’ to find committed, solidary, anti-hierarchical, respectful and committed ways of responding to and engaging with committed thoughts, words and images; as readers, listeners and viewers, and as cultural organizers.

 

The Four Wheels of Capitalism: Dispossession, Exploitation, Repression, Disdain – And the Wings of Resistance

Are the four wheels of capitalism like a train that steamrolls everything that isn’t a part of it? Do they make up a machine that produces destruction? We look at the ways in which the four wheels of capitalism are present in our calendars and geographies – in gentrification, the destruction of the natural environment, the neoliberal workplace,… And we look at the wings of resistance: at what sustains and nurtures a humane alternative, at spanners in the wheels of destruction, at the possibilities of reverse engineering. Because, as the Zapatistas say: ‘We have imagination, they only have plans with final options.’