ABSTRACT
Knowledge was produced in the MNSJ through three overlapping and mutually constituted arenas of praxis: organizational development and coalition-building, broad-based campaign organizing and “economic and political literacy” or EPL work. The focus of this chapter will be on this third arena of praxis, as it was here that knowledge as a political problem was first identified and debates about the character, status and role of knowledge production in social movements emerged. An early and ongoing commitment to broad-based capacity building through participatory political education, what later came to be called “economic and political literacy” work, was a constitutive dimension of the emergent democratic culture of the coalition. Likewise, democratic, participatory and reflexive organizational practices were central to fostering a generalized culture of capacity building. Developing within and as a constitutive dimension of the MNSJ, its EPL praxis was embedded in the multiple and ongoing political campaigns of the coalition, both serving and enriching them. Likewise, the MNSJ's EPL praxis served and was supported by its organizational infrastructure and ongoing organizational praxis.
