ESREA research network

“Between Global and Local: Adult Learning and Development”

II European Seminar: LOCAL IN GLOBAL. ADULT LEARNING AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT Wroclaw, University of Lower Silesia, 29/31 May 2008

The second Seminar of this network is organized by the European Society for Research on the Education of Adults (ESREA) and the University of Lower Silesia (Poland). During the first meeting (Faro 2006) the participants focused on the category of human development,  analyzed in a variety of contexts: from economical to educational, from global to local, from the formal education of adult learning to the non-formal and incidental or biographical learning of the citizens contemporary world. The second seminar tends to focus on „locality in globality”. This is the invitation to look from the different perspective at so well known categories which are inseparable in a modern world.

One of the basic results of living in a global world is the alternative approach to the time (history) and space (territory). The „locality” of a contemporary person is more often tied to her/his identity along with various forms of social integration in which she/he participates. Socially created locality is a result of learning processes (in which are involved both individuals and/or groups) including the processes of understanding the local space (interpreting the meanings). The locality is a result of active participation and meaning creation in every day activities (of the regions, cities, villages as well as internet, social movements, NGOs activities etc).

Looking from this perspective the social development is dependent not only on different kinds of social capital and global and local policy/politics but also on the sense of identity. The overall picture of locality in terms of chains of real events being followed by the symbolic meanings is a rich source of the ‘local knowledge‘. Combining different kinds of knowledge - not only the descriptive one but also the critical one - we would like to discuss the diversity of local marginalization and exclusion, social inequalities, access to resources and the power in the contemporary communities.

2nd Call for Papers

António Fragoso, University of Algarve (Portugal)

Emilio Lucio-Villegas, University of Seville (Spain)

Ewa Kurantowicz, University of Lower Silesia (Poland)