I recently encountered the Knowmad Society (Moravec, 2013a, 2013b) through my enquiries into Education Futures (2019) and Manifesto 15 (2015) , which was connected to my exploration of organisations orientated towards collaborating and co-creating transformations in education systems and structures. On a personal and professional level I align closely with the idea of a knowmad, as someone who is a ‘nomadic knowledge worker - that is, a creative, imaginative, and innovative person who can work with almost anybody, anytime, and anywhere’ (Moravec, 2008, in Moravec 2013a, p. 18). The knowmad as someone who co-creates across normalised boundaries/siloes and social constructs, and who actively reconfigures ideas around work, job, participation, action and agency intrigued me further, especially in relation to how my professional journey has unfolded over time. There are many roles I have undertaken as an educator, entrepreneur, employee and community catalyst that have essentially led me towards a knowmad way of being, even when I have attempted more ‘traditional’ career pathways, I seem to have been thrust (uncomfortably, inspirationally and situationally) back towards entrepreneurial and collaborative knowmad approaches to world-making.
Through this blog discussion I want to delve a little deeper into Cobo and Moravec’s (2008) ideas and additionally weave in my own thread of educational philosophy, which includes posthumanist thinking, feminist “ethics of care” (Held, 2006), environmental education, ecological systems thinking with a sustainable development emphasis - hence the prefix Eco (ecological). Firstly, I want to quickly clarify that the terminology of human capital (Moravec 2013b, p. 43) is problematic for me, even with awareness of the social justice and democratising of learning emphasised by Moravec’s (2013) Knowmad Society . I position my own onto-epistemology where all human/non-human beings having intrinsic value (Bennett, 2010; Naess, 2008) that is not attached or situated within an economic model about growth for a nation, which the term human capital can unfortunately be associated with. With semantics clarified, I would like to add that I am interested in how regenerative, commoning and ‘degrowth' wellbeing economic models can be in relationship to the Knowmad Society (2013b), and how ‘collective potential’ could exemplify an overarching term for knowledge ‘wealth’ rather than human capital?
The proposal of ‘society 3.0’ (Morevic 2013) as knowmadic and collaborative, where co-creation, cross-seeding ideas, inter-disciplinary and multi-dicispcinary thinking could be ‘normalised’ is aspirational and something that connects into environmental educational practice and especially education for sustainable futures (Hicks, 2006 & 2014; Sterling, 2010-2011). Knowmad Society is also part of educational utopian studies; imagining a society with exceptionally transformed ways of being, learning and knowledge making together in different ways, where ‘knowmads break down barriers rather than create new ones, and we must define new public responsibilities to provide for positive futures for citizens, nations, and our planet’ (Moravic 2013a, p. 23). This proposal for a future way of working and learning links into the aspirations of education underpinning the integrity of democratic becomings with environmentally conscious politics, economics and businesses, as well as a culture of ‘cultural commons’ (Bowers, 1992 - 2016), creative commons and “ethics of care”. Knowmad Society projects that by learning and working outside hierarchical institutions with very specific infrastructures that contain, control and define each of our roles, and sadly define our ‘value’ equatable to the institutions/organisation/business need, there is instead the potential for ‘liberation’; a ‘conscientizaçāo’ (Freire, 1970). As unique singular beings we can then define and create meaning through our unique roles, relationships and collaborations instead of it being imposed upon us, hence the ‘de-hierarching’ (Moravec 2013a, p.23) affect of individual and collaborative knowledge building. This potential has profound implications for community development, social contracts, national borders, global development and in meeting sustainable development goals. It also has siginificant implications for how we construct ‘formal learning’ from campus design, and if we even have schools, to the curriculum content and assessment processes. Would traditional exam and data driven testing exist within an entrepreneurial approach to learning with ‘place’ and with teachers as ‘learning choreographers’ (Bessalink in Moravec 2013a, p. 22) that facilitate students exploration and experiential journeying?
Moravec (2013b) argues we must begin the conversations about what future we want and how we might materialise that future. Suggesting that a significant feature of Knowmad Education is not only to ‘work around’ the industrial education complex, but to incorporate future visioning alongside the learning choreography. This point is something I additionally argue, that to teach the skills necessary for the present/future one must simultaneously explore what our visions for the future are, even though those visions, hopes, aspirations and collective projections are uncertain and will continue to evolve. Children and young people are co-creators in the future potential of our relationally constructed futures. Educating for Society 3.0 (ibid) requires these entrepreneurial skills, and whilst learning, these skills can be put into relevant, ‘real’, place-based problem-solving environments where students, especially into secondary or higher educational settings can be ‘world-making’ with the community they belong with.
Unfortunately, these changes have occurred across only a few pockets of society, and are designed to be small-scale, experimental and ‘alternative’, such as democratic schools, thematic learning schools, or student-led learning schools. The access and inclusion for all children and young people to these approaches is minimal at present, and like Moravec (2013b), I also have concern for how unequal the distribution of knowmad learning will be. Since Knowmad Society was published, education systems and Higher Education have been increasingly criticised for being Neo-liberalised (Cowden and Singh, 2013), which polarises educational approaches further and innovation becomes unexercised. How does one innovate and experiment with potentials when the very environment where those studies and explorations can be undertaken is itself being forced to remain a Society 1.0 (Moravec, 2013b), whilst pressured by Neo-liberalised forces? This is the eternal predicament! Yet knowmadic ways of being continue to materialise in communities and society, where new social enterprises are starting up collaborative spaces; knowledge is being explored in laboratory settings; communities are grassroots networking across skills and knowledges; start-ups are priding themselves on changing professional boundaries and working spaces; community land ownership and cooperatives are shifting business concepts. If these knowmadic approaches are manifesting as conceptual and tangible entities in our communities and getting us to question how Society 1.0 and Society 2.0 (ibid) are functioning, and if they are functioning, them the scene is already set for children and young people to witness this transition and they will want to engage with it through their learning journeys.
References:
Bennett, J. (2010) Vibrant Matter: a political ecology of things
Cobo, C. and Moravec, J. W. (2008) https://www2.educationfutures.com/books/aprendizajeinvisible/en/
Cowden, S. and Singh, G. (2013) Sat Nav Education: A Means to an End or an End to Meaning?, in Acts of Knowing: Critical Pedagogy.
Education Futures (2019) https://www.educationfutures.com
Freire, P. (1970) Pedagogy of the Oppressed
Held, V. (2006) The Ethics of Care: Personal, Political, and Global
Hicks, D. (2014) Waiting for Hope in Troubled Times
Hicks, D. (2006) Lessons for the Future: The missing dimension in education.
Manifesto 15 (2015) https://manifesto15.org/en/
Moravec, J. W. (2013b) Introduction, in Moravec, J. A. (editor) Knowmad Society
Moravec, J. W. (2013b) Rethinking Human Capital Development in Knowmad Society, in Moravec, J. A. (editor) Knowmad Society,
Næss, A. (2008) Ecology of Wisdom
Sterling, S. (2010 - 2011) Transformative Learning and Sustainability: Sketching the Conceptual Ground, in ‘Learning and Teaching in Higher Education’.
(Edited - 08/06/2010 due to missing reference)