‘Hitting from the waves’: Public pedagogy and free radio as a counter-narrative to neoliberalism

Introduction

‘InfoAlmaina. We inform on the airwaves; we meet in the streets!’ This is the slogan that heads one of the most representative programmes of ‘Almaina’ as a free radio station. The ‘InfoAlmaina’ programme presents the weekly calls of the different social movements of the city of Granada (Spain), which invite social mobilisation, hence the slogan: ‘we meet in the streets’.

In this article, we analyse Radio Almaina as an important media practice of resistance which, in a daily reality controlled by neoliberal logics, offers us a critical space for alternative debate in the midst of the private and institutional news monopolies. We start from the idea that Radio Almaina has an interesting educational potential, because it combines critical reflection on the power and control practices of neoliberal society with an invitation to informed social mobilisation. One of the objectives of this radio is to be a catalyst that connects citizens with the different social struggles in fields, such as feminism, environmentalism and socio-economic justice. It provides analyses, visions and experiences that differ from the dominant social construction of reality, and the subjectivity which this generates.

The practice of Radio Almaina, like many other free radio stations in the international context, has the potential to empower people in local communities, as reflected by Dunbar-Hester (2014) in her work Low Power to the People. These community radio stations foster social inclusion and empower communities through the production of their own information in local media, thus strengthening links with civil society (Correia et al., 2019).

This type of experience arouses a logical interest from the contextualised educational perspective, in this case, in public pedagogy. The key question in this work would be: what is the potential of free radio (Radio Almaina) to involve citizens in transformative learning processes? We understand public pedagogy as a critical reflection of what happens in public spaces redefined through political action. From this approach, we analyse Radio Almaina in Granada (Spain), choosing three of its programmes, which can be considered as instigators of forms of resistance and ethics-based learning. Here public pedagogy helps to reveal the hidden face of processes of neoliberal construction.

To answer the research question, we have structured this article in the following five sections. We begin by clarifying the concept of public pedagogy, which includes the notions of public space, its redefinition from a political perspective and the distinction between a social praxis and an educational reflection of it.

In the second section, and starting from the idea that not all learning is educational, we address the concept of education, distinguishing it from other processes, such as conditioning, indoctrination, socialisation, instruction and training. We close this theoretical foundation by specifying public pedagogy as the necessary activity of reflection on the educational value of certain social practices. Specifically, practices that make it possible to make visible what is considered desirable and, therefore, an educational objective to be achieved by the individuals who promote these actions.

In the third section, we contextualise Radio Almaina as a free radio station. We briefly describe the origin of free radios in an international context and present the beginning of these radio stations in Spain. We then discuss Radio Almaina and select three of its programmes, which allow for a critical reflection from the perspective of public pedagogy.

Fourth, there is a discussion based on the central research question, connecting the practice of Radio Almaina with pedagogical reflection. We distinguish between morality and ethics to argue that business morality and ethos go hand-in-hand. Some examples are given to show that Radio Almaina positions itself in the field of ethics.

Finally, we conclude with some considerations in which it becomes clear that public pedagogy is the theoretical tool from which we analyse these social experiences. This helps to unveil the business ethos and the neoliberal construction of the subject, encouraging critical public participation and revitalising political action in public spaces. It implies understanding radio not as an institution that ‘talks about’, but as a meeting space where social movements ‘are also part of the radio’.

Approaching the concept of ‘public pedagogy’

One of the most comprehensive works on public pedagogy is that of (Sandlin, O’Malley, and Burdick, 2011) ‘Mapping the Complexity of Public Pedagogy Scholarship’. Through a content analysis of more than 420 publications, from the end of the 19th century to the present day, the authors point out that the concept of public pedagogy has proliferated, since the 1990s, in the field of critical and feminist theories. According to them, the use of the term public pedagogy falls into five broad categories: ‘(a) citizenship within, and beyond, schools, (b) popular culture and everyday life, (c) informal institutions and public spaces, (d) dominant cultural discourses, and (e) public intellectualism and social activism’ (p. 340).

The work of feminist researchers in the mid-1990s, such as that of Carmen Luke (1996), made public pedagogy visible in the community of educational researchers. Later, from the end of the 90s, Henry Giroux’s studies popularised this theme. Educational processes outside formal institutional spaces attracted interest. Examples include popular culture, cinema, television and the Internet in addition to informal educational institutions, such as museums and public spaces. Additional examples include dominant discourses, such as neoliberalism, economic globalisation, new public management, public intellectualism and social activism, such as social movements and grassroots organisations (Andersson and Olson, 2014; Kitagawa, 2017; Sandlin, 2010; Sandlin et al., 2011, 2017).

The first thing that we appreciate is the heterogeneity, diversity and complementation of the perspectives which form the building blocks of public pedagogy as a field of education and learning which extends beyond formal education (Hickey-Moody et al., 2010). According to (Burdick, Sandlin, and O’Malley, 2014: 2), ‘‘Public pedagogy’ is generally understood as ‘various forms, processes, and sites of education and learning beyond or outside formal schooling’. ‘This diversity of approaches also implies an ambiguity in the use of this concept, in addition to being poorly theorised’ (Sandlin et al., 2011, 2017). In this sense, Savage (2014) states, forcefully, that ‘both public and pedagogy tend to lack clarity and together produce a theoretical haze, rendering the term both deceptive and theoretically airy’ (p. 79).

At this point, it is fitting to clarify the use of the terms ‘pedagogy’ and ‘education’. These are two different realities. Education is a practice, a social activity, an action, while pedagogy is a reflection, a theorisation and a knowledge. These concepts are on two different planes. One is on the plane of reality. The other relates to how we think about that reality. It is also appropriate to clarify what we understand in this article by ‘public’. Here, we agree with the idea of ‘public sphere’ which Biesta takes from Habermas:

In the eyes of authors such as Marquand, the public domain – or with the term favoured by Habermas (1989): the public sphere – is not to be understood as a physical location, but first and foremost as a certain ‘form’ of interaction. (Biesta, 2012: 686)

Since interactions also occur in the private sphere, what makes a space public is its political use. A clear example is how some public squares were used in the main Spanish cities in May 2011 by the 15M-Indignados Movement (Martínez-Rodríguez, 2019). In this case, like other social movements of the time, such as the Arab Spring, Occupy London and Occupy Wall Street, there was a resignification of physical space and the conventional use of public space. Critical reflection, and the sharing of experiences and ideas, was practised in these spaces, revealing power networks in addition to leading to agreements in assemblies through direct democracy processes. From all these contexts, what we understand here as public spaces is clear: they involve those kinds of interactions that redefine common, or conventionally public, spaces from a political perspective.

That said, public pedagogy will always be a reflection, a source of knowledge about what is happening, from the educational perspective, in those public spaces redefined by political action. As Biesta (2012) argues, ‘the political and the educational dimensions come together in the idea of “public pedagogy”, taking into account the two dimensions: that of the (political and educational) reality and the reflection on it (public pedagogy), as discussed above’ (p. 684).

A clarification of the notion of education and the role of public pedagogy

We start from the idea that not all learning is educational. Here we only need to refer to manipulative influence through processes of conditioning and indoctrination. In the first case, the intention to manipulate is supported by the use of reinforcements that set in motion psychological mechanisms so that the subject adopts the expected behaviour or, conversely, avoids a response that the manipulator does not want, in the case of negative conditioning. With indoctrination there are processes of bias and ideological intent. In both situations (conditioning and indoctrination), what is sought is a construction of subjectivity based on self-interest.

On the other hand, socialisation is a process involving the unconscious transmission of values, beliefs, attitudes, habits, behaviours and so on, which constitutes the basic framework of a society. It is the way in which a culture is handed down from generation to generation through basic institutions, such as family, school, peer groups or the media. It is obvious that not all the learning that results from socialisation is educational. There is a lot of unconscious learning which make it easier for the individual to naturalise the product of a certain social construction. Within this framework of common sense, visions of reality, forms of action, prejudices and stereotypes are learned. The ‘Matrix’ metaphor, as explained below, can help clarify these processes.

We are currently facing a process of internalisation of values and, ultimately, of a worldview that facilitates the self-regulation of the individual within the limits established by the system. For the individual who normalises these margins, they become imperceptible. Resistance is only experienced when one tries to free oneself from these margins. The individual feels free when he or she does not experience them, because, through the internalisation process, he or she forms norms and values that shape his or her behaviour as his or her own. This chimes with Foucault’s (2008) concept of governmentality and the idea that the individual ‘governs himself/herself’. This means an inherently manipulable individual who is receptive to the modifications of his or her environment. ‘This is the behaviourism that is implemented by neoliberal governmentality’ (Fernández-Herrería, Martínez-Rodríguez, 2016: 316). From this point of view, public pedagogy becomes that critical reflection that unveils (makes visible) the hidden face of these processes of individual construction.

A further step in our conceptual clarification comes from the notion that, strictly speaking, not all educational learning is education. Both instruction, as an essential method of learning aimed at enabling adequate functioning within society, and training, where there is a development of conceptual schemes (capacity for reflection, creativity, etc.), are types of educational learning. Both levels of learning must meet a content criterion: that only learning that is ethically irreproachable is educational. Regardless of the culture in which we live, we all refer to moral codes which appeal to the need to constantly question the rightness of these codes. Thus, it is obvious, that knowledge, as such, is ambiguous. A biologist, for example, can be hired by the Military to research new biological weapons precisely because he or she has shown great creative and reflective capacity in this field. If this biologist accepts the assignment, it is clear that his or her behaviour would not be educational. Consequently, in addition to imparting knowledge, education implies the content criterion that actions must lead to desirable and valuable states. This implies the practice of will, in addition to integrating intelligence. If, prior to this, the individual was only in the cognitive and skills field, he or she is now faced with voluntary determination, in which he or she can choose, or not, to practice ethically acceptable values.

These conceptual tools can facilitate for us the analyses and reflections that are established by those social practices which are carried out in public spaces to determine what level of educational learning is being implemented. But, in addition, public pedagogy would have the obligation to reflect on the educational value of certain social practices, highlighting what is considered desirable. This would be a goal for the subjects promoting these actions. In this sense, public pedagogy has to respond to the crucial fact that the resistance processes we encounter when we want to go beyond the invisible borders of ‘The Matrix’ must be reflected on and valued to establish whether they are truly educational. This leads us to what is considered valuable; that is, the field of ethics.

As an example of what has been said so far, the following quote illustrates Savage’s (2014) ‘theoretical haze’, which we mentioned in the abstract and which accompanies the concept of public pedagogy:

A small but growing number of scholars have begun focusing more on popular culture as a terrain of contestation. Although some researchers use the term public pedagogy to refer to such resistance, others use the term critical public pedagogy, explaining that they are explicitly conceptualizing popular culture as a site where domination is fought against and are framing popular culture as a critical and emancipatory pedagogy. (Sandlin et al., 2011: 347)

The dual use of the term public pedagogy is shown here. Some researchers use it to refer to resistance. Due to our aforementioned stance, we would not define public pedagogy as activity, but rather describe it as a reflection on those practices. On the other hand, the use of the term made by that other group seems, to us, correct. This is the group which identifies public pedagogy as a conceptualisation and it shows that ‘the literature on public pedagogy is still underdeveloped, theoretically and empirically’ (Sandlin et al., 2011: 4).

Following this conceptual clarification, we now present an analysis and discussion of Radio Almaina (hereafter referred to as RA) as a reflection of public pedagogy.

Contextualising RA as a free radio station

According to Pérez Martínez (2009), free radio appeared for the first time in Germany in 1924 (Arbeiter-Radio-Klub Deutschlands), as an instrument in the service of the working class for coordination between workers and exchange of information. King (2017) discusses the historical development of alternative, community and free radio stations in the international context. This author also describes a second experience of independent, non-profit free radio in the United States. Promoted by Lewis Hill, a radio broadcaster and conscientious objector during World War II, KPFA-Pacifica Radio appeared in Berkeley (California) in 1949. This second experiment in free radio was characterised by its assembly-style management, maintained through altruistic contributions from its supporters. Its influence was so great that it was and has since been considered an important precedent for the subsequent countercultural movement that emerged two decades later. Such radio stations, as King argues, have a long history of struggle and media activism.

Following these pioneering practices, what we understand today as free radio comes from the Italian and French experiences of the 1970s. These radio stations advocated the need for freedom and communication by the social movements of the time, outwith state control. They were considered independent and non-profit-making broadcasters, with collective management and programming. They sought to overcome both the public-state and the private-commercial character of the mainstream media (Radio Almaina, 2019). The history of these radio stations, both in France and Italy, shows that they had an outstanding socio-political impact of an anti-state nature, critical of ‘the system’.

The meaning of free radio broadcasting in Spain was agreed on, collectively, in the so-called Manifesto of Villaverde (drawn up in 1983), during the state meeting of free radio stations:

In a society whose reality is highly centralised and computerised, where private and public media are power and at the service of power, FREE RADIO STATIONS answer the need and the right of every single, or collective, person to freely express their opinions and criticise and offer alternatives to everything that directly, and indirectly, affects them. (Coordinadora Estatal de Radios Libres, 1983)

In Spain, with the end of the Franco dictatorship and the transition to democracy in the late 1970s, important social and political changes took place. These changes favoured the creation of free radio. During these post-Franco years, social movements, such as feminism, environmentalism and anti-militarism, among others, emerged strongly, converging with the birth of free radio (Pérez Martínez, 2018). All of them yearned for democratic forms of organisation in social, cultural and political life.

The Manifesto of Villaverde expresses the social effervescence characteristic of these years, which translated into a desire for freedom, participation and community life. All of this is reflected in the characteristics that the Manifesto identifies with free radio. They are seen as non-professional radio stations, with a non-profit-making character. Their functioning is self-managed and autonomous, and decisions are made in assembly. Participation is a key element. They are at the service of the community, in tune with daily life, with editorial approaches which offer an alternative to existing powers who control information (Coordinadora Estatal de Radios Libres, 1983).

Specifically, RA as a free radio station located at Granada, defines its project (https://radioalmaina.org/acerca-de/) as follows:

Radio Almaina, the Invisible Wave of Granada, is a free radio or autonomous station which does not depend on any company, public subsidy or ideology, but works and develops its programming collectively, in assembly. It is open to, and serves, social movements, critical cultural initiatives and any issues or concerns that may pass over Granada’s cobblestones.

RA programmes are divided into two major categories: in-house production and external production. In terms of external production, RA broadcasts programmes from 19 other free radio stations in Spain. These are integrated into their own programming schedules, as shown on their website. They are demanding and critical programmes, typical of this type of radio. In this article, our focus is on RA’s in-house broadcasting.

RA maintains relationships with 13 groups. These include neighbourhood organisations, the Andalusian Association for Human Rights, unions, such as the CNT-AIT (anarchist in nature), the collective Biblioteca Social Hermanos Quero (Social Library of the Quero Brothers), which is committed to training in politics and self-organisation from an ‘anti-authoritarian, anti-capitalist and anti-patriarchal’ perspective. It also has links with the Colectivo de la Ribera, an organisation which seeks to promote the creation of social fabric and popular self-organisation in the face of the increasing isolation of individuals in our society.

Both the inclusion of programmes from other radio stations, and their relationships with associated groups, show a network-style practice contrary to neoliberal fragmentation as a form of relational construction of subjectivity. In this article, we argue that RA contributes to the creation of a critical political subjectivity that helps to question the ‘official version’ and encourages citizen mobilisation (Piotrowski and Ruitenberg, 2016). This type of radio facilitates public participation, political commitment and a demanding form of citizenship (Dahlgren, 2009).

Our general approach has been to select programmes that promote a reflection from the framework of critical public pedagogy, with a clear socio-political orientation. This is one that shows a different version to the one presented by the establishment. As specific criteria:

We have differentiated a second block of programmes which, due to limited space, will not be addressed here. These focus on cultural topics (music, cinema, biographies), in addition to issues like mental health and discrimination. They also highlight cultural diversity thus promoting a more inclusive sensitivity. An example of this is a programme entitled ‘Split Concept’, which takes a historical walk through music, from different periods and styles, from the 16th century to the present day, claiming culture and diversity as a sign of freedom. Another is the programme ‘Feminist Capsules’, which highlights biographies of women who have frequently been overshadowed in history, such as writers, feminists, artists and activists of different nationalities.

Using these criteria, we analyse the three selected programmes and describe their content, to then open a discussion in which we critically reflect on how these programmes contribute to the public pedagogy and ethical agenda of RA.

‘Today from here’: critically reflecting and acting on current socio-environmental problems

One of the RA’s weekly hour-long programmes with the longest history began on 6 September 2014. It is dedicated to analysing different historical social mobilisations, such as the Paris Commune and local problems like the 1970 construction strike in Granada. In general, the station covers current local, national and international issues. They include issues related to struggles, social conflicts, campaigns and historical and current socio-environmental problems. In this context, everyday cultural discourses play a significant role by revitalising elements that create resistance policies (Sandlin and Milam, 2008). Each programme is accompanied by protest songs by singer–songwriters who connect with the issue. This programme is aired on Mondays at 8 pm in Granada, and on Thursdays at 2 pm in Ragna Röck (Buenos Aires, Argentina).

In programme 35, aired on 13 March 2016, there is an investigation into ‘a new betrayal of people in Europe by the European Council, this time targeting refugees’. In addition, the programme highlights initiatives supporting a demonstration organised by the Granadian Network for Reception and Refuge, which defends the rights of immigrants. This practice not only encourages critical theoretical reflection, beyond official discourses, but also fosters action by stimulating social commitment (Sandlin et al., 2017). This is a practice of public pedagogy which is shown in the report that RA presented on the refugee problem. It leads to an action of citizen resistance to face this problem. Here, educational learning is stimulated. But in addition, when touching on ethical questions that are brought into the scope of protest action, it leads us beyond the cognitive. This can be seen, for example, in relation to fundamental human rights, which do not discriminate against and conceive of any individual as ‘illegal’. Situations like this present us with a voluntary choice between a number of ethically assumable values.

Under the title, ‘Resistance and mobilisations on 11th May’ (programme 116 aired on 13 May 2019), action is called for in defence of the rights of the welfare state, using the slogan ‘Gobierne quien gobierne, los derechos se defienden’ (Whoever governs, our rights must be defended). In the same programme, the ‘3 March for Climate’ was highlighted, fostering a demonstration about the challenges of climate change. Both mobilisations took place in Granada. In line with Giroux (2001), this form of popular culture shows the possibilities for resistance that can be reflected by public pedagogy.

From a global perspective, programme 140, aired on 23 December 2019, interviews Luis González Reyes, a prominent member of Ecologistas en Acción (Environmentalists in Action). Under the title ‘Summit or abyss of COP25?’, the programme analyses the Climate Summit held in Madrid, as well as alternative protest actions. This ecologist describes two clearly defined spaces within COP25: a blue zone, which is the official one, and a green zone, which the ministry organises, theoretically, for social and citizen participation. However, González criticises the latter for being more of an advertising showcase for large corporations like Endesa and Iberdrola (two major energy companies in Spain) with a clear economic interest, ‘dressed up’ as ‘green economy’, when, in reality, they are among the most polluting companies in Spain. In the face of this, ‘it is not surprising that, when analysed, the results of the Madrid Summit seem extremely opaque. We can say that there are practically no results’ (minute 10:10–10:22). In this programme, González Reyes also comments on the positive aspects of this type of summit, referring to the unofficial part, which includes dialogue on greater social mobilisation, increased sensitivity to these issues and the creation of networks between social agents. Thus, he maintains that there is not only a ‘visibility of struggles and social articulations, but also the existence of real organisational space that allows struggles to be more powerful’ (minute 16:06–16:19).

Another example of a programme with a socio-political character is entitled ‘Tools for a Transformative Municipalism’ (programme 123 aired on 2 July 2019), in which the issue of common goods is analysed. It highlights the characteristics of neoliberal privatisation processes and the shortage of common and self-managed goods, which have been disappearing in favour of private property and the law of free trade. This programme also focuses on the importance of municipalism when understood as a space for public and community management of resources. One of the topics that they deal with is water management. They ask, ‘Why do the “comuneros” fear state management of waters, mountains, and other resources?’ (minute 16:30–16:36). For this, they give as examples two water management companies in Granada: Aguasvira and Emasagra. These are two private companies to which the public administration has granted the management of this basic resource. ‘Under the very well-worn belief that private management is more effective than public management, more and more water is being privatised’ (17:28–17:41). This is the fear the ‘comuneros’ speak of. It is a fear related to the fact that citizens are increasingly losing control over the management of basic resources because the State puts them in the hands of private companies with a business mind-set. The fight for a transforming municipalism would be to recover community management of those resources that cover basic needs. Here, they propose a radical democracy. This idea is reinforced by the lyrics of the songs that are featured in the programme, such as: ‘he who does not change everything, does not change anything’ (minute 4:14–4:16, song Triunfo Agrario, by Alfredo Zitarrosa).

InfoAlmaina: inviting resistance from a local context

This weekly programme on political and social issues in Granada was launched on 8 April 2016. Through interviews with citizen groups committed to social struggles, a series of local problems, as well as the protest actions of these groups, is highlighted. The programme is approximately 1 hour long and is broadcast live on Thursdays at 9:00 pm and Fridays at 8:00 am.

It is interesting to point out that the programme results from an interaction with listeners and with any citizen who wishes to participate and make a comment. The programme is not made just by the staff, but it invites listeners to participate: ‘You can write to us at informativo@radioalmaina.org, or leave a voicemail on 604 360 247. Remember to indicate that your message is for InfoAlmaina’.

In the first programme, aired on 8 April 2016, they dealt with a topic which had great impact in Spain, and which was aggravated by the 2007 crisis. We refer here to the issue of evictions, which involves families who lose their homes because they cannot pay their mortgage. Not only do these families lose their homes, they still owe the balance of the mortgage to the bank. This is a case which is unique to Spain. Fundamentally, from the 1990s, housing in Spain has been conceived as a commodity. Despite the fact that the Spanish Constitution defends housing as a basic right, policies developed in Spain have denied it. The real estate bubble, generated in the 1990s, encouraged buying versus renting a home, boosting bank loans to families, reducing the construction of state housing and liberalising lands (Colau and Alemany, 2012). The conservative and neoliberal Popular Party (PP) promoted neoliberal public policies that encouraged speculation of this basic good. This has led a sharp rise in house prices which ‘has grown no less than 106% since the Euro was established in 1999, up until 2007, while nominal wages grew only 8%’ (Navarro et al., 2011: 113).

This has led to the creation of groups like the Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca (PAH) (Platform for People Affected by Mortgage Problems), which was launched in Barcelona in 2009, and has been deployed throughout the country. Stops Desahucios (Stop Evictions) was created in November 2010 and is linked to the former platform. It carries out civil disobedience and passive resistance to evictions. It is an associative social movement that defends the right to decent housing. In the aforementioned RA programme, an action of Stop Evictions Granada was broadcast. As a result, a group of people demonstrated in front of the headquarters of a bank (Caja Rural) on 31 March 2016. This case features a family who lost their home. Slogans appeared, such as ‘the fight is the only way . . .’ (minute 4:10–4:20) and ‘Who has the money? Bankers have it . . .’ (minute 5:21–5:32). Those affected were interviewed during the demonstration itself. The role of Stop Evictions aims not only to highlight the problem to the public, but also to help families by giving them legal advice, supporting them emotionally, accompanying them and working with administrations in search of solutions. In this case, the role of RA was to unveil a problem that had had hardly any coverage in the conventional media, apart from a transitory trending story. RA highlights the violent mechanisms that are shaping and defining the injustice of these situations, inviting critical reflection as a practice of public pedagogy (Giroux, 2000).

In programme 75, aired in 2018, there was a special broadcast about the Feminist Strike on 8 March. In addition to other issues, they covered the events of International Women’s Day. They interviewed various members of different groups, such as the Association for Human Rights of Andalusia – on the situation of women carriers in Ceuta, Spain – and the association Nosotras (‘We’ in Spanish, but the feminine form) – on the plight of domestic workers and care-givers. This programme describes the reasons for the Feminist Strike on 8 March as:

against repression, if there is something that works it is solidarity or sorority, and fighting. Because of this, against all these abuses that we have been listing in today’s programme, and against this perverse alliance between capitalism, punitive state and patriarchy, let’s join the strike in March. (minute 1:00:43–1:01:01)

Discussion

Public pedagogy, as a reflection, should open itself up to using those intellectual tools that are considered powerful in revealing, in depth, the neoliberal business ethos, which is inscribed, normalised and institutionalised in individuals today. We believe that concepts, such as ‘morals’ and ‘ethics’ are interesting starting points.

From the humanistic perspective (Erich Fromm, Viktor Frankl, Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers, Carl G. Jung), morality is not conceived as something negative in itself, but it does seem opposed to ethics. Morality refers to laws, norms, values, behaviours that are defined by something, or someone, external. These could be institutions, people, collectives, religions, or ideologies which seek to internalise morals and incarnate them in people, holding them, defining them, regulating them. Obedience appears as a virtue which is recognised and encouraged by the system. Anyone who disobeys is disapproved of by the group and may even be banished from the community. Furthermore, morality has another characteristic. It is not allowed to question its own content, norms and authority. It also allows for a measure of comfort. You do not have to risk seeking answers from your own autonomy, you just follow what is accepted and already established.

However, ethics presupposes autonomy, self-awareness, inner work, commitment to your own individuation. It means taking responsibility for yourself, your actions and your own freedom; with morality there is no experience of fear, of insecurity. Ethics, as ‘reason in action’, implies evaluating, pondering, questioning, allowing for the possibility of making mistakes in judgement.

Here, it is convenient, first, to differentiate between humanistic ethics, where the individual appears as an end, and the entrepreneurial ethos, in which the individual is an instrument colonised by the logic of the market (subject of performance-enjoyment). Concepts like autonomy, freedom, creativity and taking responsibility for oneself are qualities which have also been colonised by neoliberalism. Morality and entrepreneurial ethos go hand-in-hand, since the neo-subject (Laval and Dardot, 2013) has built himself/herself as an entrepreneur of himself/herself, integrating and normalising market laws into his or her daily practice. He or she obeys the norms and values of competitive logic which extends to all dimensions of the individual, without questioning and thus normalising them. The neo-subject acts from a belief in ‘personal autonomy’, thus not needing to act from an external authority, since control comes from the subject himself/herself.

According to Han (2015), the neo-subject is ‘inflicting violence on, and waging war with, itself (. . .it) deems itself free, when in fact it is bound like Prometheus’ (p. 35). Rather, we are facing a ‘peaceful accommodation’ of the self-exploited individual to the system. For example, the media exemplify and model (construct) the new flexible subject who is caught up in a permanent learning process aimed at satisfying and legitimising the economic demands of neoliberalism (Windle, 2010). The neo-subject frees the State from the need for control, since it is regulated by the entrepreneur and government of the individual himself/herself. From this perspective, individuals ‘feel the urgency’ to be creative, autonomous, efficient . . . inherent characteristics of the neoliberal business ethos, from which the performance/enjoyment device is nourished (Laval and Dardot, 2013). That is, the individual thinks that he or she is free and happy . . . (Lacan, 1978; Žižek, 2008). The ‘I’ is assimilated into the system of (moral) competition, leaving aside the critical vision that educational theorists have spoken so much about in recent decades. According to De Lissovoy (2018), ‘Freire’s account of the paralysis that characterizes the oppressed stands in contrast to the particular autonomy and hypermobility that neoliberalism demands’ (p. 187). As can be seen, neoliberalism has partially colonised the traditional discourse of critical pedagogy. This means that we have to rethink critical pedagogy and public pedagogy as in the case described in this article. From this point of view, critical reflection reveals (makes visible) the hidden face of these processes of subject construction.

Then (and linked to what is stated above), while business ethos assumes the aforementioned qualities (autonomy, effort, ‘freedom’, performance, etc.) in a positive way, from the humanistic perspective, it would not be part of the field of ethics. Being in itself educational learning, strictly speaking, it would not be education since those qualities are considered valuable for the human being. This is because it requires a practice of ethically acceptable values. Of course, the values of the market, which all these qualities serve, are the cause of the current socio-ecological systemic crisis, a model of society that is not ethically acceptable.

Reflecting on the work of RA we observe, on the one hand, that it undertakes critical public pedagogy by revealing the morality of the neoliberal business mind-set. On the other hand, it promotes socio-educational practices characteristic of humanistic ethics linked to a social context. The following words, written by Darder (2011) illustrate one of our goals in this article: ‘Here independent radio production is discussed as an important tool for building community relationships and as a viable alternative for supporting civic participation and critical forms of public engagement’ (p. 696). This type of practice allows us to conceptualise public pedagogy as a form of critical resistance (Salvio, 2014; Sandlin et al., 2011), ‘connecting the construction of diverse political constituencies to the revitalization of democratic public life’ (Giroux, 2003: 13).

One of the routine practices of RA is the fostering of critical public participation (Darder, 2011), as demonstrated by the continuous calls for civic action, which are helping to revitalise radical democracy. Some of the broadcasts analysed in this article illustrate what we are discussing here. For example, in the programme entitled ‘12O Indigenous and Popular Resistance’, the socio-environmental problem of legal and illegal extractivism was highlighted. In the programme ‘Summit or abyss of the COP25?’, the Climate Summit held in Madrid in 2019 was analysed, as were the alternative protest actions carried out by different social movements. Finally, in the first programme discussed, aired on 8 April 2016 (‘InfoAlmaina’), the serious social problem of evictions in Spain was raised when RA scheduled a live broadcast of a real demonstration by Stop Evictions Granada in front of a bank.

Conclusion

As a result of the above discussion we can establish that experiences, such as RA, invite us to confront the business ethos as the dominant neoliberal discourse and as a way of constructing subjectivity. For example, the InfoAlmaina programme reports weekly on the protest activities of the social movements of Granada and seeks citizen participation in different social conflicts. The commitment of this free radio is not only informative. They have a participatory organisation, as this radio is open to social movements having a place in the programmes, undertaking and leading them. This means understanding radio not as a closed institution that ‘talks about’, but that social movements ‘are also part of the radio’. From this perspective, the values of collaboration are favoured, and a group and critical awareness is promoted by encounters between people, who understand the need to come out of isolation in the face of collective problems. This favours an alternative construction of subjectivity. The occupation of public spaces through collective political activation is one of the tools used by RA in its protest culture. It is not only a way of making radio, but radio itself is essential to tackling socio-ecological problems.

We contend that RA is helping to resignify public spaces by promoting interactions that have the capacity to politically redefine conventionally common spaces. From here, the station is practising public pedagogy, as there is a critical unveiling of different realities, on different scales. This is carried out by ethical learning in line with human rights. It is supported, and promoted by, active involvement in public spaces. Consequently, RA operates within the two dimensions of what would be public pedagogy: on the one hand, critical reflection that reveals the hidden and violent aspects of neoliberal construction; on the other hand, the active commitment to a transformative practice (strictly speaking, education). RA and similar movements function as small (alternative) islets of resistance which short-circuit the transmission of the dominant hegemonic thought that invades relational, cultural and educational spaces. At the same time, RA poses questions that help us explore innovative ways of constructing ourselves (ethics vs morality). In other words, it asks questions like: How do we want to live in our community? How do we satisfy our needs with respect to social and economic justice? How should we organise ourselves as a species within the Community of Life on the planet? How do we redefine political-social systems like democracy?

In line with what has been said, Giroux (2004) states that:

Politics often begins when it becomes possible to make power visible . . . But another element of politics focuses on where politics happens – how proliferating sites of pedagogy bring into being new forms of resistance, raise new questions, and necessitate alternative visions regarding autonomy and the possibility of democracy itself. (p. 497)

From the Gramscian perspective, this would be a narrative that strongly opposes the neoliberal hegemonic discourse by means of radio broadcasts: ‘It is precisely this quality of counter-narration that supports a space in which dominant political, economic, cultural, and ideological interests and their consequences can be interrogated, unveiled, and potentially transformed’ (Darder, 2011: 702). From here, we understand public pedagogy as a critical reflection which is transverse to other epistemological fields (sociology, psychology, philosophy, economics, etc.). This is from the perspective of what is educational versus what is not. Public pedagogy could reinforce a new epistemological position which could put a stop to continuously ‘ruminating’ and criticising neoliberalism to go further. It could also visualise those actions which specify dissident and transformative alternatives in a positive way. But second, public pedagogy could analyse the impact these resistance activities have on the environment.

An interesting future perspective to extend this research could be to approach it from an ethnographic point of view, participating in the activities generated by RA. The objective would be to understand the influence of this radio on social mobilisation activities in public spaces. It would also be interesting to detect whether RA is generating attitudes and behaviours which favour a cultural change in line with community, participative and empathetic values; in short, whether it is promoting a regenerative culture in the social and ecological dimensions.