Still spaces in the academy? The dialectic of university social movement pedagogy

Abstract

Whilst university education is increasingly commodified knowledge, it remains a social relation with the potential for emancipation of the general intellect. In order to realise this project, the knowledge generating capacity of social conflict needs to be harnessed. Leadership therefore comes not from within the university so much as being emergent in an epistemological dialogue between the fringes of the university and social movements responding to contradictory social forces. The current crisis of Higher Education can therefore be seen as a historical opportunity when social conflict is made explicit within the life of university educators. This chapter describes case studies of educational responses to social conflicts through dialogue between the author's university and social movements: in particular around environmental justice; gender-based violence and trade union mobilising. The case studies explore core aspects of the work of university educators: pedagogy; research and industrial relations; and identifies the emergence of leadership in the dialogue between university education and social protest.