The Children of the Revolution and the Matrisociality of the Benevolent State: fieldnotes from Bolivarian Venezuela

Description

This talk presents a part of my upcoming book "The alternative university: lessons from Bolivarian Venezuela" (Stanford UP, 2023). In the talk I focus on one specific aspect of the university reform in the Latin American democratic socialist experiment: the power dynamics and asymmetries in teaching and learning processes at the Bolivarian University of Venezuela (UBV). While many faculty were struggling to adopt critical pedagogy, most students held in highest esteem charismatic male academics, who used traditional instruction methods. Meanwhile, UBV students’ elevated expectations for upward mobility were stifled by Venezuela’s unreformed job market. The disappointment with the latter job market was partly subverted by UBV’s “‘hidden curriculum,”’ according to which students from poor communities were to place highest value on working with their own community for social change. Through the outreach program, central to UBV’s curriculum, the state was socializsed into poor communities where it was previously absent or violently present. Yet, while female community organizsers and mature students had a pivotal role in this process, as brokers for UBV and other state-led programs in barrios, project-based funding was precarious, so they gained only symbolic recognition. The talk engages works from the field of feminist social reproduction theory to speak about the role of women in radical politics and revolutionary movements where their work is often assumed and un(der)recognised.

Period	8 Mar 2023
Held at	University of Panteion, Athens, Greece, Greece
Degree of Recognition	International