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Home , Education in Argentina

21st Century Learning & Multicultural

Affecting Solidarity Countering Professional Alienation & Exploitation Through Mate & New Media

Jennifer Lee O’Donnell

Introduction these social movement teaching strategies tures, and privatize the education system through an affective lens, the following sec- (Schugurensky, 2003), Argentine educators This article discusses one social move- tion addresses the social and historical con- actively resisted on the streets and in schools. ment in Buenos Aires—Frente Popular text in that gave rise to teachers’ With market logic overshadowing the social Darío Fernández (FPDF)1—whose goal was participation in popular education projects. realities of students’ and teachers’ needs, to assist public school teachers in becoming I then introduce FPDF and the teachers teachers mobilized community members hit leaders of their communities by providing in this study. Following that, I provide a hardest by oppressions that would hinder them an opportunity to learn about social theoretical understanding of affects in the their participation in the public sector. mobilizing and popular education through a social collective, showcasing findings that These grassroots resistance efforts series of Freirean-based workshops. Guided reveal how affects functioned in building emerged on the streets, in community cen- by affect theorists influenced by the writ- solidarity through mate and new media. ters, in factories, and on sidewalks in front ings of Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza of city municipality buildings, where local (Ahmed, 2010; Braun & Whatmore, 2010; Neoliberalism and the Rise stakeholders demanded better-quality Deleuze, 1998; Featherstone, 2010; Good- of Popular Movements education for all. Springing from these ef- win, James, & Polletta, 2001; Gould, 2009; forts, Argentina currently hosts hundreds Seyfert, 2012; Sharp, 2007), I explore what Popular education in Argentina has of community K-12 and motivated these teachers in Argentina to a history of contestation. The late 1980s schools that utilize an activist-based, seek out popular education, a mode of critical marked a turning point in Argentina’s popular education curriculum (Jaramillo, learning, as an alternative to the traditional history, as the country struggled to heal McLaren, & Lazaro, 2011), reimagining public-school curriculum, and their desire to itself from the aftermath of a military education as an encounter of contestation. build solidarity among themselves and their dictatorship and human rights abuses activism-centered projects. that had devastated its social, economic, I likewise investigate how the work- and political foundation during previous Introducing FPDF shop organizers utilized an affect-based decades (Lewis, 2002). Neoliberal policy- and the Teachers in the Study approach to designed to engineer makers affiliated with the World Bank and Research into the ways social activism an environment conducive to building group the International Monetary Fund extended and education communities intersect is solidarity among participants through the the distressed nation’s financial patronage important for expanding pedagogy that use of two distinct camaraderie-building by way of a nation-based model designed promotes civil discourse and participatory practices. The first practice is mate, a tra- to alter the role of the welfare state. democracy in today’s political climate. With ditional South American beverage, often Transnational backing resulted in new the intent to collect ethnographic data for shared among participants, with roots in government policies that privatized public a larger study on women teaching in the pre-Columbian Indigenous cultures. The institutions—bringing about economic tu- popular education sector in Argentina, I second practice is the use of 21st century mult, deindustrialization, joblessness, and attended a series of six popular educa- learning and technology strategies incor- the eradication of federal programs serving tor-training workshops with the social porating video production and social media. poor and working-class communities (Ball, movement FPDF.2 To establish a context for viewing Fischman, & Gvirtz, 2003). Founded in 2004, FPDF organized to While public funding was besieged by find disadvantaged community members banks and austerity measures, and local employment, decent living conditions, and Jennifer Lee O’Donnell is Ministry boards uttered consumer-based encourage poor and working-class neigh- an independent researcher platitudes of accountability and quality to borhoods to be free of drug dealers and in Buenos Aires, Argentina. vindicate salary cuts, condense expendi- political pundits. Likewise, FPDF carried

WINTER 2018 57 21st Century Learning & Multicultural Education out educational and recreational projects was an artist who held art and technology And even though education is fertile to meet the needs of young people and workshops in schools that provided kids ground for promoting groupality, we ar- adults residing in villas, or shantytowns, with government-issued laptops. en’t used to thinking this way. Our goal by providing them space for learning, Through small group discussions3 and shouldn’t be to capture the flag—it should be let’s build something together. (Camila, self-management, and solidarity. participating in and observing workshops, Small Group Discussion, May 11, 2013) FPDF decided to sponsor these work- data4 revealed that for these teachers and shops to enact popular education strategies teachers-in-training, joining the work- Educators reported that their teaching they saw as absent in traditional shops came to fulfill a desire not only for led to social isolation. They agreed that training programs. As such, the workshops improving their classroom practices, but there was very little time given to integra- were organized to provide public school also for building the kinds of relationships tion with the community, and schools often teachers with quality teaching tools to bring they felt lacking in their personal and closed themselves off to urban problems to their classrooms and places of learning. professional lives. at the request of government authorities, Two feelings were shared by participants once again reinforcing this sense of alien- Participants who attended the workshops—exploitation ation separating them from the community and the larger world. Affecting solidarity starts with par- and alienation. These depoliticizing affects, Florencia, for example, who grew up in ticipants. Study participants included which I discuss in the following subsection, General Rodriguez in the years following facilitators and public-school teachers from stemmed from teachers’ isolation from the dictatorship, a time when many Argen- the workshops, chosen because of personal their vocation, other teachers, and other tines were laid off from work, remembered interest in contributing to the research I residents in their community. going through not being was conducting. My choices of study partic- taught about the social conditions impact- ipants were also based on the experiences Public Educator Exploitation ing their community. they shared in the workshops that were in and Alienation line with ongoing theories and data codes. In one small group discussion held during Our teachers should have taken us out I received initial interest to participate the workshop, participants agreed that into the streets and explained the reality from two of the group facilitators, Camila teachers were being exploited and students to us that this is a factory that’s closing and Ana, as well as workshop attendees were being hounded over ranking and test because there is a system in place that’s making the work run out. We studied Florencia and Rubia. scores, while policymakers instilled top- the world wars as if they were more Camila studied language pedagogy down mandates and obstinate curricula that important than our own factories closing at Normal School Joaquín. She was not did not fulfill the needs of the community. just two blocks away. I lived three blocks teaching at the time of this study because Our class sizes are huge. I work in three from the Serenisima Milk Factory and she decided to concentrate on popular ed- schools, two middle schools, and a techni- we never talked about the hardships the ucation and running the workshops, and cal school. In each I have a minimum of 40 workers faced there, the hardships many because she was having difficulty finding kids. (Galinda, Small Group Discussion, of our parents who worked there faced. steady employment in a public school. May 11, 2013) Unless we break with the standards of traditional education we will continue to Ana was studying elementary educa- And to earn a decent salary, we need to ignore these injustices. (Florencia, Small tion at Normal School 4. She was also a teach more hours of classes. This makes Group Discussion, May 11, 2013) popular educator with a project involving teachers have less time for each class we recreational activities in schools in the do teach and it diminishes our ability to As the above comments suggest, alien- working-class neighborhood of Sarmiento. provide good quality teaching. (Camila, ation and exploitation were evident on the Florencia was teaching math at a pop- Small Group Discussion, May 11, 2013) city streets as well as inside classrooms and schools. Such conditions were a cata- ular school in the factory-centered neigh- And if we complain, who do we turn to— borhood of General Rodríguez. Rubia was above us are the directors and adminis- lyst in participants’ search for public space a teacher in a traditional trators and then there are those above the to connect with one another professionally public school in the city. directors who manipulate them. From the and politically on issues pertinent to edu- To uncover a fuller assortment of per- time tests and curriculum are designed cation. Feelings of alienation and exploita- spectives and trajectories on why teachers until they get to the classroom, those in tion motivated teachers to seek out popular came to the popular education workshops, power make it known that it’s the teachers education as an alternative paradigm to who are below them. (Rubia, Small Group I became judicious in seeking participants the traditional public-school curriculum, Discussion, May 11, 2013) who closely matched the criteria of the de- and to build solidarity among themselves veloping study. Based on comments made These top-down, bureaucratic chains and the popular education project. in the workshops, personal interactions, and of command within the education system As such, the following section situates their history with social movements or edu- alienated those who wanted to transform these teachers’ desires for community in cation, I eventually asked Paula, Barbara, public education. This was the result of an the literature on affect theory, offering in- Maria, and Galinda to also participate. environment in which teachers were kept at sights into the ways in which feeling states Paula first had studied to be an engi- a distance from one another and from their in social collectives influence solidarity and neer but switched to teaching. She taught students, and where the school itself became social action. theater workshops at Normal School 7. removed from the actual lives of those in the Barbara was studying law but switched to communities who filled the classrooms. Affects in the Social Collective teaching as well. She was studying to be an Those working in the public school are Many teachers came to the FPDF art teacher. Maria worked in a poorly-fund- very lonely people. (Barbara, Small Group workshops because they felt disconnected ed public elementary school in General Ro- Discussion, May 11, 2013) from their vocation and the education dríguez where she taught English. Galinda

MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION 58 21st Century Learning & Multicultural Education community. Though educators reiterated ing composition), while at other times one participants through the material use a that public education is for everyone, that molders the other, wiping out any solidity traditional South American beverage with it is a way to form oneself and to think of its parts (what he refers to as decompo- roots in pre-Columbian Indigenous cul- about one’s relationship with the world, sition). When we meet a body that is not in tures combined with 21st century learning the more time passed in the workshops, composition with ours, we feel our power and technology strategies. the more the conversations veered off reduced or blocked, and we correspond with prescribed utopian talk of schooling to sadness and our ability to act is decreased. Engineering Solidarity Through instead reveal the alienating barriers that When the opposite occurs, and we feel in Mate, Video Production, made it impossible to build the pedagog- composition with another body, our power and Social Media ical community they envisioned. is heightened and our ability to act is in- Alienation impacts human and materi- creased. In other words, fulfillment depends Invoking Feelings of Friendship al facets of teachers’ lives. Ahmed (2010) upon whether we enter into composition Through Mate Ritual writes that sensations experienced by or decomposition with different affected We hold close to us the “happy objects” alienation take . . . subjects, objects, and spaces we bump into. we treasure most (Ahmed, 2010). In Ar- Individual and collective bodies are in . . . place before others, those from whom gentina, this involves the joys of sharing one is alienated, and can feel like a weight constant states of mutability in their relation mate, one of many affective objects present that both holds you down and keeps you to objects, other bodies, and other bodies during the workshops. A drink originally of apart. You shift, drop your head, sweat, feel upon them (Seyfert, 2012). As such, Spinoza the Guaraní people, mate is a traditional edgy and uncertain. Everything presses saw affect as constitutive of a type of political South American tea-like beverage widely against you; you feel against the world and practice, believing bodies living among one drunk in Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, the world feels against you. (p. 168-169) another possessed greater potential and Bolivian, Chile, and parts of Brazil. Teachers in this study would agree power to act when in collaboration—the The Guaraní have a legend that says the that such a state conjures few sentiments greater we are affected via mind and body, Goddesses of the Moon and the Cloud came essential for people to develop themselves the more power we have to act through to the Earth one day to visit it, but found a professionally, to organize, discuss, and actions caused by our internal and external jaguar that was going to attack them. An old improve upon public education. Rather, the sensitivity to that which surrounds us. man saved them and, in return, the goddess- material they desired to bring to life in their es gave him a new kind of plant from which classrooms was dominated by the neoliberal The Matter and Material he could prepare a drink of friendship. The agenda. In the workshops, this continuing Objects of Politics preparation and symbolic meaning behind struggle for public education provided ed- Affect theorists look to the multiplicity its social intricacies is evident in the manner ucators with an embodied counterbalance of ways we are motivated to question, chal- of its preparation for the familial, welcoming to alienation and exploitation.5 lenge, and take part in the public realm occasions where it is present. (Braun & Whatmore, 2010), and believe To say mate was a popular drink in the Building Solidarity Through both human and non-human energies workshops would be an understatement. the Human and the Material should be considered in our analysis of At each workshop the movement organiz- ers arranged a food table of homemade em- Theoretically, affects between humans, understanding collectivity and what it panadas, veggie pies, and beverages. Mate non-humans, and matter emerge through is that can help us break with negative and hot water were provided free of charge regular encounter. As bodies convene in affect- sensations of alienation and exploitation. via the quintessential Argentine electric ed spaces, the human as well as non-human Imploring us to look not only to what water heaters plugged into various wall matter involved in encounters is transformed binds individuals to one another through sockets. From the food table to the mate in individual and collective ways (Gould, mind and body alone, but to the non-hu- being drunk by the teachers, the nutrition 2009). Affect theorists have long turned to man resources or tools, to the matter and engineered through these affected material the writings of Dutch philosopher Baruch material objects of politics, Braun and objects registered feelings of sustenance, Spinoza (2000) to understand the nature of Whatmore (2010) explore the transforma- home, and friendship within the body. collaboration, which, for him, arose from a tive power of objects and things, believing A simple explanation would suggest desire to reproduce affects of joy, which can objects are not merely extensions of our mate is prepared by steeping dried leaves then enhance human capacity to act. bodies, but rather “actively give shape to of yerba mate in hot water, then serving Spinoza believed the fundamental desire bodies and their capacities” (p. xviii). it with a bombilla or metal straw from a of all humans was to exist as vigorously and Humans and things came into this shared hollow gourd. But this explanation joyfully as possible in the company of nat- world together, and therefore it is impos- neglects the precision that goes into a brew, ural beauty, enjoyable smells, decoration, sible to classify them as something apart as well as the disciplined choreography and a diversity of food and drink. He saw or separate from the technical aspects of involved in its shared service. I will not such ways of being “as instrumental for the existence, be it language, machinery, or go into further explanation of the rich care education of the body and its mind” (Sharp, other devices. Non-human and technologi- that goes toward protecting the drinker 2007, p. 751), believing joy is meaningful, joy cal objects are inseparable elements to our from scalding their tongue or the chemical keeps on, and joy transports us to act and becoming stories as individuals and social breakdown of some of its undesirable nu- to feel fulfillment in such action. collectives (Braun & Whatmore, 2010). trients. I will, however, discuss how mate As Deleuze (1988) explains, when With that in mind, the following section is traditionally drunk in particular social affected bodies come across one another, details how workshop organizers utilized settings, such as family gatherings or with sometimes they combine and form a more an affect-based approach to pedagogy friends, in order to show how it is affective powerful union (what he refers to as form- designed to engineer an environment con- ducive to building group solidarity among in producing friendship and camaraderie.

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When drinking mate, the same gourd (2001) believe, affective states in social compile footage into five-minute videos and bombilla are used by everyone drink- collectives offer . . . utilizing edits, cuts, framing, and energetic ing. One person assumes the task of server. and culturally relevant cumbia music, and …the pleasures of being with people Typically, the server fills the gourd and one likes, in any number of ways. Other then post these to FPDF’s Facebook page. drinks the mate completely to ensure its pleasures arise from the joys of collective Based on the comments each video re- good quality. The server subsequently refills activities, such as loosing oneself in collec- ceived, participants were energized by the the gourd and passes it to the drinker to his tive motion or song. This can be satisfying compiled progress made in each workshop or her right. The ritual proceeds around the even when done with strangers – who no and, as Featherstone (2010) says, were mo- circle in this fashion until the mate becomes longer feel like strangers. (p. 20) tivated by the affective responses registered washed out or bland, typically after the The teachers found as much. Instead on the bodies participating in each activity. gourd has been filled about 10 times. of feeling isolated in their individual Great first meeting! Can’t wait for the Drinking mate, a drink of friendship, is classrooms, teachers partaking in the second! (Maria, Facebook Comment, May affective in its ability to conger nostalgic, mate ritual could join with others, debate 15, 2013) familiar sentiments among drinkers of and discuss issues—and see themselves all social classes. In Argentina, mate can I’m so proud of my group, genius! (Paula, and others as cultural workers and public Facebook Comment, July 8, 2013) be found in almost every home. As an educators, as subjects who could transform object with affective properties, it unifies social, cultural, and pedagogic spaces. What a team! (Galinda, Facebook Com- ment, July 8, 2013) by creating an awareness of the drinkers’ In the next section I will bring to discus- surroundings—drinkers are aware of the sion 21st Century learning and technology Tremendous team! (Florencia, Facebook hot water slightly burning their lips from strategies, and how workshop organizers Comment, July 10, 2013) the metal straw, the warmth of the gourd similarly engineered joyful experiences, Looking forward to continuing our work- in the palm of their hands. and with that solidarity, through video and Likewise, those in the mate circle may shops with a critical eye and to continue social media. These videos, presented to dreaming again. Big hugs. (Camila, Face- be held in awareness of the group, ques- participants each month after a workshop, book Comment, August 20, 2013) tioning themselves—am I next, who do I acquired pleasant qualities, insofar as they What beautiful moments! See you all in pass it to, am I talking and not passing it? were positioned in the direction of happiness. Mate has communal properties steeped the struggle! (Ana, Facebook Comment, in nostalgia of home (drinking mate with September 14, 2013) Nurturing Team Spirit your family and conversing is a typical As apparent, new media technologies way to spend an evening), patriotism and Through Video Production are beneficial in revealing elements of camaraderie (as mentioned, mate is the and Social Media affect that viewers are on the whole not drink of the southern cone with precolo- As mentioned in the previous section, accustomed to seeing, and thus have the nial ties), as well as the body’s need for workshop participants were able to stim- potential to alter our understanding of the nourishment, stimulation, nutrition (it is ulate positive affects gathered over food, range of affective structures that operate a stimulant and drunk amongst those driv- drink, and ritual to commemorate, inau- in everyday life. The Facebook page itself ing long distances, for example, and may gurate, and celebrate their solidarity, thus was a way to maintain communication conjure memories of the often-undergone inspiring acts of friendship and joy that gave through the lag time between monthly teenage road trip). It is also a diuretic and way to further states of solidarity. In addition workshops, whereby members could talk too much of this drink of friendship makes to drinking mate together, group games and with one another, comment on photos, and the drinker aware of their swollen bladder, team-building exercises captured on video learn of activities hosted by the movement. the body’s need to relieve itself. were a way that workshop coordinators Their comments on the videos revealed It stands, then, that sharing mate would mobilized teachers by utilizing affects of fun the ways in which viewing the work they form a part of popular, public . among other efforts made to engineer a more had done in previous workshops, with the Rituals, songs, folk tales, heroes, denun- organized union of educators. altered help of upbeat music and clips cut ciation of enemies, and so on are often Featherstone’s (2010) consideration of between idle time, enhanced the communal the tools movements utilize to strengthen new media investigates the potential to moments of each meeting, fostered team- commitments, vision, and make clear experience new intensities through the like dynamics, and encouraged partici- ideas, ideologies, and initiatives. Through moving body via cinema, television, or pants to return to the next gathering. observing the mate ritual present in the other digital technologies. Such media Engineering affects of happiness, joy, workshops, it was evident that affects has the potential to capture and manip- and fun through videos made it possible for manifest not solely as feelings, but hold the ulate images so that we are able to view workshop coordinators and participants to potential to direct the group toward objects affects as they register through gestures sustain links among thoughts, ideas, and and to whatever or whoever surrounds and movements that may normally go objects, as well as bring about positive group those objects (Ahmed, 2010). undetected in face-to-face interactions. feeling. This work coincides with Ahmed’s Movement organizers used such joyful Workshop facilitators similarly utilized (2010) work on happiness, which supports rituals to build solidarity, fidelity, and love video media in interesting ways. the idea that objects also affect us and cause among members, to encourage them to act During each workshop facilitators would us to make evaluations of things, and those and to feel fulfillment in the act of social walk around with cameras in order to re- evaluations respond based on how our body action (Spinoza, 2000). Participation in a cord participation in various activities that interacts or not with those things. mate circle offers an enjoyable experience included drawing, dialoguing, acting, sing- In viewing some of the participants’ whereby involvement itself offers plea- ing, and performance. During the days after responses quoted above, the idea that they sures. As Goodwin, James, and Polletta each workshop the group facilitators would were not merely participants, or public

MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION 60 21st Century Learning & Multicultural Education school teachers, but becoming part of the Social movement-based popular educa- (pp. 1-18). New York, NY: Routledge Falmer. same team, was one of the ways in which tion projects, such as the one highlighted Braun, B., & Whatmore, S. J. (2010). The stuff educators’ vision for building a coalition of here, utilize various objects, ideologies, of politics [Introduction]. In B. Braun & S.J. educators was realized. and activities to mobilize teachers in or- Whatmore (Eds.), Political matter: Technosci- ence, democracy, and public life (pp. ix-xl). Min- Teachers have always been part of a der to give them a common space in the neapolis, MN: of Minnesota Press. network that disseminates information public realm to combat neoliberal reform Deleuze, G. (1988). Spinoza, practical philoso- by word of mouth, little by little, from one efforts. Studying the motives and affective phy. San Francisco, CA: City Lights Books. student or class to another. Workshop coor- practices of teachers participating in the Emerson, R. M., Fretz, R. I., & Shaw, L. L. (1995). dinators used video to do a similar job—to popular education sector is relevant to Writing ethnographic fieldnotes. Chicago, IL: diffuse information with the purpose of understanding how heterogeneous groups Chicago University Press. building a more unified group of educators. of actors can take root within education Featherstone, M. (2010). Body, image, and affect Whether connecting students, teachers, communities and magnify their potential. in consumer culture. Body & Society, 16(1), 193-221. or citizens, digital video and social media Fink, M., & Arnove, R.,F. (1991). Issues and ten- technologies were able to more easily cir- Notes sions in popular education in . culate content and coordinate action, and International Journal of Educational Devel- 1 For anonymity, pseudonyms have replaced thereby made building political and social opment, 11(3), 221-230. the proper names of the social movement and Goodwin, J., James, J., & Polletta, F. (2001). movements possible. These technologies all participants in this study. Why emotions matter [Introduction]. In opened opportunities for teachers to com- 2 Teacher workshops ran from 10 a.m. to 3 J. Goodwin, J. Jasper, & F. Polletta (Eds.), municate across borders of space and time, p.m. in May, June, July, August, September, and Passionate politics: Emotions and social allowing them to blur the boundaries of October of 2013, with approximately 100 public movements (pp. 1-26). Chicago, IL: University educators in attendance. For more on this study, their personal lives, civil society, activism, of Chicago Press. please see O’Donnell (2014), O’Donnell & Sadler and the fight for public education. Gould, D. B. (2009). Moving politics: Emotion (2017), and O’Donnell (Online First). Incorporating mate, as well as video and act up’s fight against AIDS. Chicago, IL: 3 Workshop facilitators frequently had teach- production and social media, formed a com- University of Chicago Press. ers break into small groups to do activities and Freire, P. (1985). The politics of education: Cul- pact network of teachers who shared the discuss the thematic topic of the day. Topics ture, power, and liberation. South Hadley, same ideas, objectives, and moral values. under discussion included: The Theory and MA: Bergin & Garvey. With that, they became part of a larger Practice of Popular Education; Popular Educa- Freire, P. (1990). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New network of educator activists ready to de- tion in Public Schools; Public Schools and the York, NY: Continuum Press. Community; Popular Education and Group Dy- mand that the government grant them the Jaramillo, N. E., McLaren, P., & Lazaro, F. namics; Popular Organizing; Popular Education fundamentals of public education like fair (2011). A critical pedagogy of recuperation. and Social Movements. As such, questions that salaries, improved facilities, and basic ma- Policy Futures in Education, 9(6), 747-758. came up during the discussions were organic terials like books and chalk. At the same Lewis, P. H. (2002). Guerillas and generals: The rather than pre-determined. “” in Argentina. Westport, CT: Praeger. time, they were actively transforming the 4 Data were analyzed using Emerson, Fretz, O’Donnell, J. L. (2014). “Quien sabe mas lucha alienating and exploitive state of education and Shaw’s (1995) procedures for ethnographic major.” Adult educators’ care of the self prac- throughout Buenos Aires. inquiry. This involved open-coding for things tices within social movements in Buenos Aires, like (1) Information that connected education Argentina. Adult Education Quarterly, 64(4). movements to Argentina’s neoliberal history; The Relevance of Constructing O’Donnell, J. L. & Sadlier, S. T. (2017). Performing (2) Educators’ backgrounds; (3) Educators’ Mate grief through teacher activism and curricu- Solidarity Through views of public education; and (4) Affect lum: Case studies from Oaxaca and Buenos and New Media triggers (happy, sad, angry, as well as affects Aires social movements. Transformations: The registered in the body such as instances of This article offers insights into how Journal of Inclusive Scholarship and Pedago- laughter, tears, rage). These broad categories gy, 26(2). Special Issue: Teaching Community. teachers may gain community support for were subcoded as deeper analyses ensued. O’Donnell, J. L. (Online First). The promise of the social, political, and cultural issues Subcodes included keywords like (1) Alienation; recognition and the repercussions of govern- affecting the continuity of their work in (2) Exploitation; (3) Community; (4) Joy. ment intervention: The transgender peda- public schools. Through the use of the 5 Workshop coordinators, many who were gogical vision of popular educators in Buenos public school educators, knew of these feelings body in communion with other bodies Aires, Argentina. Gender & Education. of alienation and exploitation shared amongst over brews of mate, and the use of video Schugurensky, D. (2003). Two decades of neolib- their teaching peers. As such, through coordi- and social media portraying happiness, eralism in Latin America: Implications for nated activities, projects, and dialogues, effort joy, and fun, workshop practices made it adult education. In S. Ball, G. Fischman, & was made to counter these negative sensations S. Gvirtz (Eds.), Crisis and hope: The educa- possible for teachers to manifest politics to instead invoke camaraderie through affective, tional hopscotch of Latin America (pp. 45-66). of good feeling and belonging, all the while human, and material-based strategies that in- New York, NY: Routledge Falmer. constructing solidarity and commitment to voked happiness, nostalgia, and home amongst Seyfert, R. (2012). Beyond personal feelings their educational projects. teachers in the collective space. and collective emotions: Toward a theory Affective pedagogy is neither based on of social affect. Theory, Culture and Society, the superior knowledge of an educator tell- References 29(6), 27-46. ing others how to act and how to be, nor does Sharp, H. (2007). The force of ideas in Spinoza. Ahmed, S. (2010). The promise of happiness. it put education methods under a regime Political Theory, 35(6), 732-755. Durham NC: Duke University Press. Spinoza, B. (2000). Ethics. Oxford, UK: Oxford of learning. Instead, affective pedagogy Ball, S. J., Fischman, G., & Gvirtz, S. (2003). University Press. enacts a concern for human togetherness. Toward a neoliberal agenda? Tension and As evident, rallying affects over mate and change in Latin America. In S. Ball, G. Fis- video technology fosters politicized social chman, & S. Gvirtz (Eds.), Crisis and hope: relations vital to a democratic education. The educational hopscotch of Latin America

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