Building knowledge democracy from the university: A case study in Spain

Abstract

The main aim of this article is to describe a singular experience in the University of Seville, Spain which connects universities and communities. It is a descriptive paper which strives to explore the work done to break the gap between universities and people in communities. Perhaps, one of the most important problems in our societies is a lack of democracy in matters such as knowledge, its construction and dissemination. On the other hand, it is important to break the dominant discourse that universities always teach communities. According to Freire, teaching and learning are two steps of the process of creating knowledge. Thus, universities have to learn from communities as well as teach them. The Paulo Freire Chair at the University of Seville was created in 2008. In the article I describe the work done by the Chair, which, within the framework of an alliance between the people and the public institution, works to edify a knowledge which is truly beneficial. In the conclusions, I reflect on some findings in order to explain how the Paulo Freire Chair, as a university tool, can help to edify knowledge democracy and how it can be done from methodological approaches such as participatory research.

Keywords

Democracy dialogue knowledge participatory research university

Introduction

We are witnessing important changes in the field of Higher Education. It seems to navigate between the pressures of the market, focused on competences and skills, and mankind’s age-old desire of an education for a better life, more culture and education for all. The key word in the first case seems to be competitiveness, and in the second one well-being and citizenship. Regarding the second point we can include the transference of knowledge to society and, beyond this, the collective building of knowledge that means the creation of a democratic society also in terms of knowledge. Following this, we could ask what the universities’ role is regarding these issues. How can universities provide opportunities for individuals and communities to improve their expertise and their lives, thinking in well-being and citizenship rather than competitiveness? The answer to this question requires an examination of the role of knowledge in the achievement of engagement for transformation.

The aim of this paper is to describe a singular experience, located in a singular context that can help in understanding the possibilities that can be opened from universities in the way to build knowledge democracy. When I name knowledge democracy I am referring to, according to Hall (2011), a movement that ‘operates from the assumption that knowledge is produced by scholars in universities and research institutes and that the benefits of this knowledge production, as a point of public morality or public accountability, need to benefit society’ (p. 12).

Knowledge democracy also means the recognition that ‘important knowledge is created in different ways and in different locations’ (Hall, 2011, p. 12).

On the other hand, as Reason and Bradbury state:

Action research is a participatory, democratic process concerned with developing practical knowing in the pursuit of worthwhile human purposes, grounded in a participatory worldwide […] It seeks to bring together action and reflection, theory and practice, in participation with others […] the flourishing of individual persons and their communities. (2001, p. 1)

There is no better declaration for a participatory approach looking for an ethical engagement to communities where people live, work, love, etc.

In the article, I briefly present some ideas concerning the role of the universities, the diversity of knowledge which is building in communities using participatory research (referred to as PR hereafter). Then there is a detailed explanation of the work done by The Paulo Freire Chair at the University of Seville discussing the reason of the success and problems found. Finally, in the conclusions I will try to connect this experience with the role that universities can play in building knowledge democracy and how it could be done in a participatory approach.

The role of the universities

From the perspective of tradition, universities seem to have always taught communities. It is a dominant discourse between universities and communities and is reinforced in the 19th century with the Humboldt approach to teaching, learning and doing research. Humboldt innovations include: the development of the PhD as training for research, the promotion of the principle of ‘subject specialisation’ over the principle of the ‘unity of knowledge’ and the promotion of the role of critical thinking in higher education above that of aesthetic or moral sensibility (Millican & Hart, 2011). Now it seems that we need to rethink the role of the university, and this role is related, in some ways, to the requests coming from the community itself.

In terms of community it presents a challenge to universities to be of and not just in the community; not simply to engage in ‘knowledge transfer’ but to establish a dialogue across the boundary between the university and its community which is open-ended, fluid and experimental. (Watson, in Millican & Hart, 2011, p. 3)

The policy document ‘The role of the Universities in the Europe of knowledge’ argues that one of the main goals of the European universities is ‘to establish closer co-operation between universities and enterprises to ensure better dissemination and exploitation of new knowledge in the economy and society at large’ (COM, 2003, p. 3). It also highlights four interdependent elements towards the building of a knowledge society: the production of knowledge through scientific research, its transmission through education and training, its dissemination through information and its use in technological innovation. In short: universities talk and communities listen. Plus, the most important links between both should be done with companies and enterprises in order ‘to develop effective and close co-operation between universities and industry’ (COM, 2003, p.7). On the other hand, the document also states that one of the functions of the university, among others is to ‘become a forum of reflection on knowledge, and as well of debate and dialogue between scientists and people’ (p. 9).

In its ‘World Conference in Higher Education’ in 1998, the UNESCO defined the missions and functions of the university such as: to educate for citizenship and for active participation in society, advance, create and disseminate knowledge and ‘provide, as part of its service to the community, relevant expertise to assist societies in cultural, social and economic development’ (1998, p. 4). These activities are aimed at eliminating poverty, intolerance, violence and illiteracy from an interdisciplinary and trans-disciplinary approach.

In the 2009 ‘World Conference on Higher Education’ the UNESCO defined the Social Responsibility of Higher Education, ‘Higher Education has the social responsibility to advance our understanding of multifacetated issues, which involve social, economic, scientific and cultural dimensions and our ability to respond to them’ (UNESCO, 2009, p. 2).

This key concept of social responsibility is very important. The university, as a public institution and a common good in our societies, has a responsibility to focus on the citizens and the community. Knowledge production has to be useful knowledge for people and for the community to promote well-being and to deepen democracy and citizenship.

On the other hand, there are pressures to connect universities to the surrounding environment. Sometimes these pressures are linked to workplaces, companies and enterprises. In this direction it is possible to find some powerful experiences (e.g. Levin, 2007; Levin & Greenwood, 2001; Perry & Harloe, 2007). But, as Cascant i Sempere (2012) states: ‘Companies and Public Administration cannot be the only interlocutors of universities … [also] organizations linked to the fight against inequalities and injustice’ (p. 2, my own translation). In this line, in a project called Utòpika it is very important that the initiative for connecting universities and communities comes from students looking for both better learning and professional development.

The work is done in a similar way by the University College of Ghent, Belgium, together with a Civil Society Organization (referred to as CSO hereafter) to reclaim and refurbish a former industrial district in the city. The major tool used was art in public spaces (Steel, Van Eeghem, Verschelden, & Dekeyrel, 2012; Von Kotze, 2009) to promote the work in a specific context and to engage artists, social workers, university teachers and neighbours in the design of new public spaces.

Similarly, a university association called ‘Architecture and Social Compromise’ (Arquitectura y Compromiso Social, in Spanish) is working with neighbours in the city of Seville to face eviction and gentrification in historical districts by giving advice and support (De Manuel, 2012).

Levin and Greenwood (2001) reported on some experiences – that they called of ‘Pragmatic Action Research’ – either in European’s Nordic Countries or in the United States. Some of the experiences are related to workplace and employment. Another is related to indigenous communities and the recovery of their identities. One of the conclusions is that ‘the relationships between societies at large and universities are growing increasingly troubled’ (p. 112). Scholars have to challenge it with approaches such as PR.

One of the most interesting – and new – initiatives in this field is the recently created UNESCO Chair in ‘Community Based Research and Social Responsibility in Higher Education’. In its document proposal we can read:

Universities can no longer continue to stand aloof and disconnected but, rather, must create opportunities and become spaces of encounter where students and communities of the 21st century can learn together to become more active, engaged citizens in the creation of knowledge for a more just and sustainable world. How higher education institutions can better tap into existing knowledge, encourage the co-creation of new knowledge through participatory processes of enquiry and investigation, and use the findings to challenge and find new solutions to social and environmental problems is the contribution the work outlined in this proposal will make. (Proposal for a UNESCO Chair, 2011)

According to Hall (2011) there are two dominant institutional trends: the knowledge access movement and the emergence – or re-emergence – of new discourses and practices engaging scholars and universities to work in co-operation with people in communities. He states: ‘The strongest tendency in both these knowledge democracy developments is to see, as central value, the dissemination and impact of scholarly, academic, scientific or expert knowledge’ (Hall, 2011, p. 14).

I think that these two approaches mentioned earlier are not the only way to engage universities with communities. The collective building of knowledge – beyond the transfer – can be conceived based on other sources of knowledge such as social movements and traditions.

At this point it could be useful to differentiate between mode 1 and mode 2 of producing knowledge. Since mode 1 refers to co-operation, mode 2 is based on co-production of knowledge.

Mode 2 means to rethink the role that universities play in society. In a way very similar to Utòpika, Regeer and Bunders (2009) state that ‘within universities, master students should be trained in the area of mode-2 research, thinking and behaving, as well as provided knowledge and skills in their specialist subject’ (p. 118). But, in fact, mode 2 of creating knowledge is an exception in the functioning of an academy mainly worried on dispatching diplomas.

Diverse knowledge, communities and PR

There are very rich and diverse sources where different and alternative knowledge is both created and developed (Santos, 2009). This creation of knowledge is occurring in communities where people live. As Toulmin (1977) notes, we can only understand our concepts if we try to understand the sociocultural process through which they are being developed inside specific communities. Toulmin (1977) also adds that we are continuously sharing these concepts with other people.

Community can be considered – in a very traditional way – as ‘our only insurance’ (Levesque, 2011, p. 1), a kind of shelter place. But, as Wildemeersch and Vandenabeele (2007) state, community is a place in which conflict is the common. Following Mouffe, authors oppose ‘politics’ to ‘the political’. On one hand, the former refers to a consensual view of community, one that seeks to ‘reduce political problems to technical issues, which can be resolved by an expert’ (Wildemeersch and Vandenabeele, 2007, p. 26). On the other hand, ‘the political’ is associated with insecurity and risk.

People tend to look for protection in their own communities and wish to reinforce the securities offered by those one likes. The world tends to be divided into ‘them’ and ‘us’, whereby the ‘us’ creates a shelter against insecurities and ‘the other’ can be identified as the reason for these insecurities. (Wildemeersch & Vandenabeele, 2007, pp. 27–28)

Community can also refer to a democratic setting arising from one’s environment. According to Raymond Williams, the notion of community ‘expresses particular kinds of social relations […] the warmly persuasive word to describe an existing set of relationship, or the warmly persuasive word to describe an alternative set of relationship’ (1989, p. 76). Deriving from Williams, then, community is a public space where debate takes place. A community is not homogeneous; on the contrary, the community is a heterogeneous place where conflict is a fundamental part of quotidian life.

It can be affirmed that community is a space for change, a dynamic place when tensions and conflict are usual. In this case, conflict is held in both internal and external situations. In this scenario the co-creation of knowledge takes place when individuals share their knowledge with the others in a way that creates a new knowledge.

As Gaventa and Cornwall state:

The emphasis is more upon the ways in which production of knowledge shapes consciousness of the agenda in the first place, and participation in knowledge production becomes a method for building greater awareness and more authentic self-consciousness of one’s issues and capacities for action. (2001, p. 71)

Santos (2009) differentiates between an abyssal thought and post-abyssal thought. The main difference seems to be in the visibility or non-visibility of knowledge. According to Santos (2009), the distinction is the existence of an invisible line that differentiates between the things that I can know or the things that don’t make sense to know. Quijano (2009) derives it from a colonial structure and in this direction he stresses the importance of the difference between peripheral and central countries drawn by Wallerstein (1984). Abyssal thought, according to Santos (2009) characterizes the modern view of scientific knowledge: only a type of knowledge could be considered as truth, a scientific truth.

For that, one of the major tasks that is necessary to undertake in the process of co-creating knowledge is to rescue traditional knowledge. At the same time that we are fighting to preserve environmental diversity, we must preserve the diversity of knowledge, starting from so-called traditional knowledge.

According to Wynberg, Schroeder, and Chennells (2009), traditional knowledge is usually shared and collective, in contrast to scientific knowledge which is usually monopolistic, competitive and individualistic. Thinking in terms of traditional knowledge it is ‘important to be aware of the cultural and symbolic, as well as economic, value of a commodity’ (2009, p. 7).

Traditional knowledge could be defined as:

Traditional and tradition-based literary, artistic or scientific works; performances; inventions; scientific discoveries; designs; marks, names and symbols; undisclosed information; and all other traditional and tradition-based innovations and creations resulting from intellectual activity in the industrial, scientific, literary or artistic fields. (World Intellectual Property Organization, in Schroeder, 2009, p. 37)

Seen from this perspective, knowledge is a common good and we have to find a balance between the preservation of traditional knowledge and its commercial applications to industry and consumption. The case of a plant called Hoodia and the experience of San people could be useful to reflect on these issues (Wynberg et al., 2009). Briefly, Hoodia is a plant that provides nourishment to the San people in their travels across the Namibia desert. Pharmaceutical companies have discovered the strength of this plant as an appetite suppressant, utilizing and commercializing it in weight-loss diets without the authorization of the San people. CSOs committed to indigenous’ rights took action and negotiated an agreement that enables the San people to the reconnaissance of the discovery and use of the plant and to maintain a kind of ‘intellectual property’ – including economic stipulations – over the plant and its commercial use in the first world.

This process seems to demonstrate how the foundations of some types of knowledge are in the traditions, in people’s experience, in the surrounding environment where they are living. This is one of the major aims of PR as defined by Fals (1986). This aim also tries to overcome the traditional disdain held by universities, considering this as an inferior type of knowledge (Levin & Greenwood, 2001).

I am using the term PR. Perhaps because it is the term used in adult education. As Fals stated:

After recent years, and since the Cartagena Congress, it may now be appropriate to clearly demarcate the PAR from the classical positivist and psychological approach [above, in the same text Fals indicated the connections between the AR of Lewin and the more technological flows and not at all critical of AR] from which we emerged twenty or more years ago, as critics have demanded. We can then discard the 'A' and then call it PR. (1998, p. 183, my own translation)

I would like to stress two aspects of PR. The first is the ‘participatory ethos’. ‘The choice of the term “participatory research” was simply made as a descriptive term for a collection of varied approaches which shared a participatory ethos’ (Hall, 2001, p. 173).

These various approaches emerged in the reconnaissance of the vivencia developing ‘an empathetic attitude towards Others’ (Fals, 2001, p. 31).

The second aspect is related to the construction of knowledge. Orefice (1987) has participated in an experience in southern Italy, near Napoli, where people were researching their environment. The process involved individuals from social movements in the district and scholars from the University in a continuous process of dialogue and knowledge exchange. It is crucial that two different kinds of knowledge – popular knowledge based on the daily experience and academic knowledge – can reach a mutual understanding that prevents knowledge from colonizing the other in the process of co-creation.

The Paulo Freire Chair at the University of Seville¹

As I mentioned before, I introduce, as a case study, the experience of the Paulo Freire Chair at the University of Seville in the way to engage the academy with communities.

The Chair started working at the end of 2008 thanks to an agreement between the University of Seville and a CSO. The main support comes from the University – around 80% of the total budget in these four years. The Chair resides in university premises as well.

It is important here to clarify the structure and operation of the Chair. The Chair is depending – in the organizational chart of the university – on the Vice-Rector of Technology Transfer; it is included, jointly to others, as a chair supported by companies and enterprises – there is not a specific category for chairs involved with CSOs.

The Chair has a Head, and a governing commission that approve both the plan for each year and the annual report of activities. The Chair has not its own resources, neither for research nor for organizing events. So it was necessary to look for financial resources to organize every event and activity. On the other hand, the Chair was based on voluntary work which involved either the Head of the Chair or other people – mainly university students, but also people involved in communities.

The major goals of the Chair were defined as the following: to make connections between the academic world and social movements, and to generate transference of both experience and knowledge in a way that creates reciprocal enrichment.

During these years, diverse projects and activities were carried out by the Chair. Let me describe them.

Training activities

There are two different training activities. One is an introductory course on Freire devoted to university students coming from different faculties. The major goal of this course was to introduce the works of Paulo Freire and his relevance at present time. The Chair organized four courses with an average rate of 15 people per course.

A second activity is related to training university students going to Nicaragua to collaborate in a Literacy Campaign during the summer. In these four years around 30 university students went to Nicaragua on grants by the university. The training was focused on the context of Nicaragua and in the literacy method used in the campaign: ‘Yes, I can do it’ (Yo, si puedo, in Spanish).

Teaching materials and resource centre

Some teaching materials were elaborated during this time. (i) An adaptation of ‘Currach Project’, an initiative developed in Edinburgh, Scotland by the Adult Learning Project that combines the learning of literacy skills and the building of a traditional Irish boat. It was published by the university and delivery to support the Literacy Campaign in Nicaragua. (ii) A reader’s guide to diverse Freire’s books. This reader’s guide was used in the introductory courses mentioned earlier.

There was an attempt to organize an Online Resource Centre but it failed. As I will discuss later, the main reason of the failure was the lack of support from either the university or the CSO. But, it is also important to remark other important problems such as the author’s rights, an issue related to the property of the knowledge.

Publications

The Chair has published two different books. One is the translation to Spanish of a book by Clover, Follen, and Hall (2009). The second one is a small book called ‘To Participate by Participating’ (García & Lucio-Villegas, 2009). It holds short histories written by people involved in social movements such as: a Historic Memory Workshop; a group of neighbours that occupied a block of social houses, a theatre workshop by women, among others.

Keynotes and roundtables

Different types of events have been developed in these years: basically keynotes and three roundtables series. Keynotes were organized at the beginning of each academic year and in university premises. In this case, people from CSOs and communities came to the university to discuss the keynote speaker or to launch a book. This always took place in singular academic spaces.

Roundtables series were planned as a dialogue amongst people – not necessarily between university teacher and people in communities – for reflecting and co-creating knowledge starting from their own reality. Three roundtables series were organized: One related to the reading of Freire’s books; a second on gender issues in Freirés works and a third related to Popular Education.

Taking into account the singularities of each place and the interest in every event, the usual development of almost all of roundtables were in four steps: (1) an individual gave an introductory speech trying to connect it with both the specific place we were in and the concrete theme that we wanted to debate: food security environmental issues, teacher training, multicultural issues, local development, etc., (2) other people – such as practitioners, members of social movements in the community, and others – gave a speech. It was always conducted with an attempt to be sensitive to the diversity of each place, trying to show this variety in the selection of the local speakers which presented the main problems connecting the issue to the place, (3) everyone in the room could add something from their own experience and (4) people from the table responded to questions, clarified meanings, etc. It seems that making connections between the issues handled enabled people to create solidarity at that point in time. In some cases, activities were finished with a theatrical performance of their own plays by people from the community.

Now I present two different examples regarding roundtables:

In the first roundtable series, the book Pedagogy of the City addressed environmental problems in a village near Seville called El Viso del Alcor. The main speech within the book was made by a councillor of the village, and it was related to environmental hazards created by the building of a new railway route. After this speech, other people talked about the specific situations of a community orchard that could allow people to recover their agricultural roots. This was very important because the villages surrounding Seville are losing their definition as countryside and changing to dormitory towns. Then an adult educator spoke about his work introducing environmental issues at the school. After the common dialogue, a group of women performed a play. During the following year, a seminar on environmental issues took place and a group of adult learners kept working on this issue at the adult education school.

In the roundtable series devoted to Popular Education, there was one called Building Rivers from Popular Education that took place in a village called Coria del Río near Seville. It is a village with a long and strong tradition of both shipbuilding and fishing activities. For this, the guest speaker came from the Adult Learning Project in Edinburgh to share with the neighbours a specific programme called Currach Project.

The structure of this speech was similar to the previous one but the speaker order was changed. The main speaker closed rather than opened the session. This allowed people to deal with different issues. People talked/ related accounts about the dredging of the River Guadalquivir, the pollution, the abandonment of fishing activities and shipbuilding, etc. At the end people created knowledge, sharing and confronting different experiences and realities. This new knowledge is related to the possibilities of producing an alternative understanding against dominant tendencies – in this case to recover the river as a traditional place linked with people’s daily life.

Discussion

Hall (2011) asked himself: ‘Can these structures [universities] support the traditions of liberatory and transformative pedagogies and practices inspired by Freire and the early work done in participatory research?’ (p. 2). I try to answer this question by explaining the achievements and the failing of the Chair during the period described.

The first thing to explain is that some achievements are related to the dimension of the University of Seville. This is one of the biggest universities in Spain with around 80,000 students and 3,500 staff. In this framework, it is possible to find a kind of spaces of freedom where the bureaucratic control is more diffused than in a smaller organization. This could be considered as a contradiction with theories of organizations (Giddens, 2007; Rodríguez Aramberri, 1984) but coherent with the academic invisibility of experiences like that. In his analyse of the consequences of the flexible work, Sennett (2000) demonstrates that the authority could be very diffused and the control is less visible. In short, it can be suggested that one of the reasons that allowed the Chair to do the activities described was the possibility to create a space of freedom far away from the control that institutions such as universities usually have. In fact, when help was requested to organize a Resource Centre – and the Chair became visible – the demand was not supported and the building of an On-line Resource Centre failed. The same happened when problems arose and the university decided to maintain the Chair but without Head and activities.²

Looking at the past, I think that this invisibility that enabled the Chair to work can be considered negative. It is a kind of renouncement to consider that the work done associated with people is not marginal; on the contrary, it is important to university activities. In this scenario we are always working while the contradictions and the interstices of the system allow us to do that. Perhaps, it would be better to confront these tensions and contradictions from the beginning. But, on the other hand, maybe this wouldn’t have allowed the Chair to organize the activities done. In the end, we are always working in the margins of the system, in and against the state (London Edinburgh Weekend Return Group, 1980).

As I have previously explained, the Paulo Freire Chair is a partnership between the university and a CSO. Reporting of research on CSOs in Japan, Tsuchiya (2007) states that CSOs could be very committed to social justice and the democratic functioning of the society, but sometimes inside them there is a ruling style of management. In the case of the Chair, one of the barriers came from the CSO. Contrary to the university, the CSO is a small organization with a charismatic leadership (Weber, 1964) that is based on a centralized and oppressive control where it is not possible to find these spaces of freedom.

A second issue to discuss is to look for an answer to the question: What do people expect from universities? The three roundtable series organized were always linked with social movements and schools in communities. Almost all of these events took place outside the university, in adult education schools or community centres. Every event was prepared in close collaboration between people from the communities and people involved in the Chair, but the protagonist in the drawing was always amongst the individuals in communities and/or schools. This leading role is essential to edify a relationship based on the confidence. The Chair was recognized as a group of people far away from the traditional role of the university. It was recognized as an instrument that people can use to claim their rights or to recover their own memories and culture. In this sense it can be suggested that raising ties with communities is a primordial element for initiating a transformative work.

In short, things that people expect from universities are related to helping them in the long way to maintain and/or recover their own culture, their traditional way of life, the advice or the training to keep fighting, resisting the eviction or by designing their own district as in Ghent. People don’t want to have ‘new lessons’ from the university. On the other hand, as I explained in the case, there is some continuity in the work of the Chair. People understood that the activities were not a kind of flash moment of university opening, but a compromise to work together with people, promoting self-organization in communities.

This collective work to create knowledge means to shift from I to we, to create community as Sennett (2000) explains in the case of IBM workers that edified a new understanding of their situation as unemployed when they could share together their common experiences.

Conclusions

Like the San people or the inhabitants of Coria del Río, individuals collectively store up experiences and knowledge, but they need places and spaces to express it. In these collective shared expressions – through dialogue – they are able to build new experiences and knowledge. Universities could offer these places and spaces and support the expression of this knowledge. Now I will try to answer two questions: (i) How can the Paulo Freire Chair be related to knowledge democracy? (ii) Why can these practices be considered PR?

(i) The work done by the Paulo Freire Chair has been based on stressing that the most important element is the people in their own context and not the expert coming from the university. In this sense, I think that these activities, as the diverse keynotes and roundtables can be considered nearest to a freirean way of producing knowledge by dialogue (Freire, 1970). As English and Mayo state, this occurs ‘through an interactive process in which the matter at issue becomes an object of co-investigation by the educator and learners … [encouraging for a] epistemological curiosity’ (2012, p. 14, italics in the original).

In the moral commitment that universities have to have with societies at large and communities where they reside in, the Chair always stressed the importance of going out of the academy. The Chair has organized a great number of activities outside of university premises. But, on the other hand, it could be significant for activities to take place in the university. In this direction, the Chair has used symbolic spaces inside the university – mainly the Paranínfo, the most magnificent inner space – to give voice to the people.

But it is not only by using these spaces that a process of knowledge democracy can be built. The way that events are organized is important. In a keynote on literacy, the discussants were immigrant people that learnt Spanish at this time. They could discuss the theory from their practice as learners. In this scope, the prominent idea was always to transfer knowledge from university to society, but in a singular style stressing that ‘lessons’ from universities should be discussed and contrast with other knowledge coming from people’s daily life and experiences as in Orefice’s work (1987).

Finally, in the activities conducted by the Chair, the most important issue is the attempt to make connections between different types of knowledge, but stressing the knowledge coming from people’s experience. This means to recover people’s experience and to re-build it as an important part of the processes of learning and teaching. This also enables people to reflect and criticize their own traditional knowledge (Crowther & Lucio-Villegas, 2012).

Encouraging this kind of grass-roots activities can bring the university down from its ivory tower. It is the way to co-create knowledge between communities and universities.

(ii) In some ways, the work done can be considered close to PR. Relations between power and knowledge have been emphasized by authors like Gaventa and Cornwall. Basically, the major argument is that PR recognizes that ‘knowledge is socially constructed and embedded’ (Gaventa & Cornwall, 2001, p. 74). PR ‘Involves a whole range of powerless groups of people – the exploited, the poor, the oppressed, the marginal’ (Hall, 2001, p. 173).

On the other hand, one of the characteristics of PR is the reconstruction of both history and community life (Fals, 1986). This happened in every activity by the stories told by individuals, the actions that people try to improve, the rise of a new – or old and sleeping – awareness.

Reason and Bradbury (2001) have defined some criteria to validate and evaluate the quality in inquiry. I am going to use some of them to weigh up the work done by the Chair as PR.

(a) Questions related to a relational practice engaged to democracy. The book ‘To Participate by Participating’ (García & Lucio-Villegas, 2009) was a collective process of reflection from/ and to action. The major characters in the book were the people that collectively told their histories of fight and resistance. Democracy in the production of knowledge became here a fundamental value. (b) Questions about plural ways of knowing. Every event always presented a plural perspective – sometimes diverse and other divergent – of the different issues. In one of the roundtable series, different perspectives regarding the biological agriculture were presented. There were arguments in favour of matters related to environmental issues and food security and arguments stressing that in specific contexts it is important to guarantee that people have sources of wealth. This plurality enabled people to create their own knowledge. (c) Questions related to the outcomes. Some outcomes have been reached. One is the project to create a museum that collects the memories of the River Guadalquivir. This outcome is a work in process which tries to potentiate the popular culture and the reconstruction of community life as Fals (1986) stated as one of the goals of PR. (d) Questions about significance. Perhaps the most important value that the Chair has promoted is the people’s belief in their own capacities, the faith in which they can organize their lives. The most important significance here is that people can achieve this in the encounter with and the discovery of others and their realities. From this point, processes could emerge – or re-emerge – focused on people and on their surrounding reality that also includes the ancient desire to become a citizen.

Footnotes

Acknowledgement

The author would like to thank Davydd Greenwood for leading the review process of this article. Should there be any comments/reactions you wish to share, please bring them to the interactive portion (Reader Responses column) of the website: .

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

Author's biography

Emilio Lucio-Villegas holds a PhD in Education. His research is focused on Adult Education, Citizenship and Participatory Research. From 2008 to 2013 he was Head of The Paulo Freire Chair at the University of Seville. He holds the Phyllis M. Cunningham Award for Social Justice presented in 2010.

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Building knowledge democracy from the university: A case study in Spain

Abstract

Keywords

Introduction

The role of the universities

Diverse knowledge, communities and PR

The Paulo Freire Chair at the University of Seville 1

Training activities

Teaching materials and resource centre

Publications

Keynotes and roundtables

Discussion

Conclusions

Footnotes

Acknowledgement

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

Funding

Notes

Author's biography

References

The Paulo Freire Chair at the University of Seville¹