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Popular Education and Youth in Latin America
Related to country: Panama

Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic



While I am working here as a Netcorps Intern, I am also enrolled at York University as a fieldwork student and as such I have certain responsibilities. While I am working away I also have to make sure that I'm also integrating my research, and as such I am constantly searching for that mid-point of praxis. I think that learning through doing is the best way to learn, but I have to admit that I am biased because that is what works best for me. Throughout my studies I have always searched for opportunities to apply what I'm learning. That is what is the coolest thing about being at Consejo de Educación de Adultos de América Latina (CEAAL) because it is a direct extension of my Popular Education for Social Change class! While I am not in the field working as a popular educator, being in the office leads to a number of great learning experiences.

Yesterday I had to opportunity to talk with Raúl Leis, the Secretary General of CEAAL, about my plan of study. For my master thesis I plan on examining how youth from around the world are using technology as a tool for social change. I asked Raul about these two themes and he didn't really think that there was much activity within the realm of CEAAL's network itself. We went through the pages of CEAAL's organizational directory and we found a few organizations that worked directly with youth which was really encouraging. I think that the next step would be to contact these organizations individually and find out what their situation is.

When you look at TIG you see youth from around the world who are using new media to get their message out, whether it be on a blog or on a youtube video. Many youth are utilizing new social networking technologies such as Facebook and MySpace to get their messages out. I wonder if the youth in Mexico are using Hi5 to organize for social change as much as the youth in Canada use Facebook? Are some social networking sites more activist than others?

Another question that I have in regards to youth within popular education networks is the question of vocabulary. Reading through Carlos Nuñez "La Revolución Ética" I've noticed that almost every sentence I have to look up a new word in the dictionary. I speak Spanish fairly well, and the words that I keep on finding seem to have a very specific meaning apart from their day to day use. To me this is a signal for jargon, which leads me to think how does this material relate to the Latin American youth of today? Do they relate to these materials and this dialect, or have they come up with other vocabulary to express the same thing? All these questions will help me on my search for new forms of social organizing, but the trick is to stay dedicated in my search.

It kind of reminds me of looking for vegetarian food in Mexico! Everywhere I went I would ask, "¿Tiene comida vegetariana?" They would always tell me no! Then I would ask; "¿Hay frijoles? ¿Arroz? ¿Aguacate?" and then slowly but surely a vegetarian mean would materialize. I guess that's a pretty good metaphor for research!

January 28, 2008 | 2:21 PM Comments  0 comments

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