Conference Agenda

The aim of this paper is to cultivate conceptual and practical possibilities that lie beyond the ubiquity of the crisis narratives that marks research, theory and practice in education and beyond. It is a paper for ‘the ones who stay and fight’ (Jemisin, 2020). Central to the arguments is the development of the radical imagination as a collective practice that can drive what David Graeber (2007) calls ‘insurrectionary moments’ in our work as researchers and practitioners, and in our lives as citizens and human beings. With this work, I set out to contribute to ‘the emergence of a different paradigm for researchers…that puts at the centre concerns with social transformation and the creation of alternative futures through imaginative actions in the present’ (Punk Ethnography, 2023, n.p.).

In earlier work, I explored Ruth Levitas’ utopia as method as a way for educational researchers and practitioners to engage with alternative futures that go beyond problem solving (see Van dermijnsbrugge & Chatelier, 2022). I made the argument that the imagination is hijacked by those who wish to build a singular, prefabricated future that will emerge from solving the problems that the assumed crises are posing. This future is a ‘known territory to be mapped and conquered and fought over’ (Facer, 2016, p. 70) with evidence-based ‘weapons’ that do nothing more than perpetuating a crisis-ridden status quo.

In this paper, I build on the work of utopia as method by looking more closely at the concepts of hope, despair and radical imagination, as well as the very concept of education itself. I reimagine education as a hyperobject (Morton, 2013) that is ‘everything everywhere all at once’ (after the 2022 film by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert). I problematize the binary opposition between education and non-education and argue that the ‘explosion’ of education - to borrow an image from anarchists Colin Ward and Anthony Fyson (1973) - beyond the institutionalized and limiting spaces of schools and educational institutions is necessary if we want to put the radical imagination to work and contribute to social transformation.

I weave together three arguments that each attempt to respond to a question:

Can we exist beyond the binaries of hope and despair? And if so, what does this place look like?

What is the radical imagination and what are the conditions for it to exist in educational spaces?

So, what do we do now? How can we put the radical imagination to work?

Through responding to each of these questions, I try to offer ways of being, thinking and doing that ‘not only help reveal structures and systems of violence, exploitation and domination…it must also contribute to people’s capacity to imagine and forge paths beyond them.’ (Haiven & Khasnabish, 2014, p. 85).

Recently there is a growing interest in anticipatory regimes and imaginaries in education (Ramiel & Dishon, 2023; Morris, Couture & Phelan, 2023; Webb, Sellar & Gulson, 2020; Amsler & Faser, 2017). These contributions bring together questions about how anticipation as a discursive practice narrows down the future imaginaries that are possible in relation to education. The future when turned into an object of educational policy making loses its open-ended character often over-emphasizing certain aspects of the present social world, for example human capital (Webb, Sellar & Gulson, 2020) as central aspects to thinking about the future of education. Thus uncertainty about an open future is progressively turned into performative certainty.

The proposed paper seeks to contribute to the debate surrounding the limits of this performative certainty through a historical- sociological analysis of the ways in which sociologists of education, futurologists and related scholars and intellectuals of the 1970s and 1980s in state socialist Romania envisioned the future in relation to education. The time frame was chosen as between the publication of the UNESCO Faure report (1972) Learning to be: the world of education today and tomorrow, as a hallmark for the discursive materialization of a global response to the crisis of education (Elfert, 2015) and the events of 1989 as the end of state socialism in large parts of the world and temporarily of the legitimacy of the corresponding social imaginaries of the future. Moreover, this period allows the inclusion of a perspective on the relationship between imaginaries of the future and education from within late state socialism and thus has the potential to balance out the dominance of capitalist-centric reconstructions of this relationship and its impact on present imaginaries.

The investigation builds on archival and library material, primarily academic journal articles and books. In a first step, the inquiry will be focused on the intellectual productions of actors based in Romania that circulated in both Romanian, English, French and German language sources. The analysis will look at the ways in which influential international theories of education of the future, and of the relationship between the future and education, were taken up and responded to in the Romanian context, as well as the interrelationship between conceptual, empirical and political realities. Through this, the project will contribute to a situated and nuanced understanding of the social imaginaries of the future, the roles of education, and the understandings of youth. It will shed light on the ways in which the state socialist system was imagined from within, as a prospectively lasting and continuous future, going well into the 21^st century, and the relations that this had with conceptualizing the roles of education. It will shed light both on the limits of anticipatory regimes based on the assumption of continuity, crafted within one political system, thus exposing the fragility of anticipatory practices and the limitations this imposes on prescriptive practices of the roles of education. Moreover, it will help uncover the intellectual traditions of the sociology of education and futurology in Central and Eastern Europe through a Romanian case study, and thus help balance the mostly Western European historic accounts of the European sociology of education. Finally, through a focus on the relationship between socio-cultural reproduction and political-economic system, it will shed lights on the subtle historic differences between educational traditions in Europe.

On October 7, tens of thousands of Israeli children and youth were uprooted from their homes by the war in Gaza and transferred to evacuation centers, where they reside to this day. Immediately after this withdrawal, dozens of youth workers turned up at these venues for the sake of rebuilding the youth’s education systems. A few months later, non-formal education centers are operating at hotels and motels throughout the country in an effort to bring succor to youngsters who have undergone severe trauma. The research project at hand is documenting the experiences of these educators, their motivations, and the daily challenges they face with the objective of answering two key questions: how do professionals educate in the absence of a blueprint for the future, to include how long their services will be necessary? And what methods are being used to reach traumatized children of all ages and persuade them to adopt, as much as possible, new routines? To date, we have conducted interviews with 80 educators from different organizations and ranks. Preliminary findings suggest that education under fire concentrates on rebuilding trust and re-forming relationships. On occasion, these pedagogic activities have, for all intents and purposes, kept these youth afloat. At the conference, we will elaborate on the enduring efforts to reach high schoolers. In addition, the researcher shall discuss how these educators grasp and are responding to the situation on the ground, while some of them are families and friends' victims of war.