Professor Anna Stetsenko 2024: ‘Activist/transformative theory for education premised on changing…’

Professor Anna Stetsenko’s full keynote titled ‘Activist/transformative theory for education premised on changing the-world-and-ourselves within world-historical struggles’, from the International Society of Cultural-historical Activity Research (ISCAR) 2024 Conference, Rotterdam. Professor Stetsenko is internationally recognised for her work on sociocultural and activity theories. Her talk inspired many at the time (see ‘Insights from ISCAR 2024‘) as she called us to consider a transformative activist stance and move beyond the status quo. My sincere thanks to Anna for her permission to record and share it. With some apology for imperfect audio and visual (my equipment!), this talk has continued to stimulate my thinking and action, each time I’ve listened. I hope it can for you too. The keynote abstract is included at the bottom of this description. You can find more information about Professor Stetsenko and her inspiring work here: https://www.gc.cuny.edu/people/anna-stetsenko ⏰ Chapters ⏰ 00:00-Introduction to Professor Anna Stetsenko 02:03-Anna’s introduction 09:08-What to expect in the talk 15:26-The location of Anna’s work (theoretically and literally) 21:16-Out of Adaptation. In with Transformation. 22:11-How to move from adaptation to radical connection to world-historical struggle. 24:56-A call for new theory 30:18-Joining ethics, ethico-ontoepistemology and transformative activism 35:00-‘People make history and are made by history at the same time’. Co-realising ourselves and the world 39:38-Speaking back against the demand for obedience 41:02-“You are traffic!” 44:30-Un-given-ness 50:00-Actors of world and history-making 53:07-What IS the difference between humans and AI computers? 57:39-What do learners care about? 01:01:04-Anticipating resistance – showing vulnerability 01:07:49-The revelation is the work to do. And to care. Information from ISCAR keynote abstract (https://iscar2024.com/keynotes/ ) – Anna Stetsenko; Professor of psychology and of urban education at the City University of New York, United States Marxism, and Vygotsky’s project in its footsteps, outlined a dramatic change in perspective for social sciences including psychology and education. This was achieved by positing collective transformative praxis — communally co-realized by people in continuous world-historical struggles stretching across generations — to be the core grounding and the very “fabric” of human existence/life, history, and development. This proposition’s radical implications require further elucidations and clarifications at onto-epistemological and ethical levels, especially given global sociopolitical crises directly affecting education and scholarship and related, in no small part, to outmoded ways of thinking/understanding/theorizing what is to be done. In expanding this perspective, my suggestions (see transformative activist stance*) include focusing on all people inevitably participating in and, more critically, contributing to a continuous making of the world, via our being-knowing-doing, in a *mutual spiral of co-realizing-the-world-and-ourselves*. The dichotomy of this process’ communal and personal layers is rejected by positing that *every person matters, as a community member*,* in everything that is going on in the world, now and in the future. Importantly, this ethical proposition is also onto-epistemological (pointing to a unified *ethico-ontoepistemology*) insisting that people, including as learners, do not and never can passively dwell in reality, nor deal with and know reality “as is.” This is because—most radically, in a conceptual step beyond Marx and Vygotsky — nothing simply “is,” with the world/reality and ourselves, instead, being ceaselessly actively/agentively transformed in all acts of being-knowing-doing. Implications include radically reworking positivist notions of objectivity/subjectivity and neutrality in research and beyond and eliminating the theory/practice gap. Other implications focus on advancing teaching/learning that supports/promotes ways for learners to expand their abilities of joining in politically nonneutral world-historical struggles (collective activist projects), currently underway or in the making, as these simultaneously implicate projects of personal becoming (e.g., in community college project with Eduardo Vianna). In expanding upon Marx’s key message, the goal of education is not to interpret the world but to change it.