ABSTRACT
The importance of education, learning and knowledge in the contemporary era has not been lost on those engaged in promoting neoliberal globalization, and it is common to hear corporations talking of themselves as ‘learning organizations’; discussing the ‘learning society’ and the ‘information society’; and recognizing the need to set up structures that can change and adapt to new circumstances, be they fast capitalism, lean production or flexible accumulation, which reflect the need for more mobile structures and a workforce skilled to adapt to a fast changing environment (Ranson 1994; Jarvis 2001). The ‘knowledge economy’ has now become a widely used term, albeit
contested, to describe contemporary processes of economic accumulation. The emergence of a knowledge-based economy is manifested in the strategies that states and capital pursue to enhance productivity and efficiency through the use of digital technologies while equipping people with job-related technical skills that are perceived as necessary to integrate successfully into a highly competitive and changing world of work. Much contemporary writing on these issues tends to focus attention either
on the idea of ‘knowledge economies’ or ‘knowledge societies’ (OECD 2001; World Bank 2003; UNESCO 2005; UN 2005). The first (advocated by the World Bank) represents an overtly technological and economistic perspective that sees digital technologies and workers’ competencies, typically referred to as ‘human capital,’ as the keys to unlocking ‘development’; which itself is conceptualized in financial terms. In this conceptualization, specialized knowledge is an important value-addition in the production of goods and services, and thus it is increasingly important in profit generation. The second, ‘knowledge societies’ (advocated by UNESCO) extends this narrow conception to include social and political dimensions and the respect and promotion of human rights. Here, knowledge, in all its diversity, is viewed as a ‘public good, available to each and every individual’ (UNESCO 2005: 18). It embraces a broader concept of human development to include freedom of expression, the right to education and the right to participate freely in cultural life, that information technologies can be used to promote. Despite these differences, however, both tend to align the importance of
knowledge with the primacy of the economy and with particular kinds of
actors with expertise, such as problem solvers or symbolic analysts (Reich 1991), both also seek either to strengthen contemporary free-trade neoliberal rationalities (in the case of the World Bank) or slightly modify them (in the case of UNESCO). Neither approach seeks to challenge the fundamental inequalities that exist in the contemporary world nor offer anything but piecemeal reforms. These types of approaches to ‘knowledge’ have been critiqued by scholars
such as Santos (2004), Appadurai (1999) and Escobar (2007), for privileging western, scientific, institutional knowledge, and for their obsession with processes of capital accumulation and their normative attachment to industrialization and capitalist modernity. These authors, among many others, raise critical questions such as: knowledge for whom? for what purpose? with what outcomes and consequences? These questions are a central concern of this book and reflect our own belief that knowledge is never neutral, it is located in, and contextualized by both time and space, and emerges to address historically produced and conditioned problems (Cox 1996: 87) from the perspectives and vantage points of particular actors and interests. In contrast to those advocates of the orthodox knowledge economy, we are exploring and advocating for the validation, production and distribution of counter-knowledges, such as can be seen in the strategies and practices of social movements, many of whom are involved in the ongoing World Social Forum process and other global justice networks (Cumbers et al. 2008; Routledge 2008a, 2008b; Routledge et al. 2007). Knowledge produced by and for these social forces that are marginalized by contemporary social arrangements and power structures, whose theory building and practices, are based on very different material and ideological foundations and objectives. Central to this process of building ‘counter-knowledge’ then is to recognize
knowledge production within oppositional social movements, and valorize the process by treating it as a legitimate and important field of study that mirrors capital’s concern with the study of the role of knowledge, but with very different motivations. This chapter seeks to contribute to this process by developing an embryonic conceptual framework for approaching and understanding strategy development as a process of teaching and learning within labour unions, their organizational allies and supporters.
