“Beyond the Monoculture:

Strengthening Local Culture, Economy, and Knowledge”

‘Counter-development’ Conference in Ladakh

On August 1st-4th ISEC hosted a unique international conference, Beyond the Monoculture: Strengthening Local Culture, Economy, and Knowledge. This conference brought together proponents of ‘counter-development’ from across the planet to question the basic assumptions behind economic globalization, and to articulate alternatives in defense and renewal of local economy, knowledge, and place.

Although heavy rains saturated the normally arid landscape of Ladakh before and during the conference, more than 35 participants and 40 observers were able to attend, arriving from places as diverse as Perú, the Netherlands, Austria, Japan, Italy, the United States and India (see below for further details on attendees). Participants sought collectively to:

• 1) Testify to the ways economic globalization is diminishing human well-being and undermining the integrity of cultures, languages, worldviews, local economies, and ecosystems;
• 2) Question the widely held assumptions that underlie economic globalization and conventional development;
• 3) Highlight the work that conference participants and their respective organizations are doing to protect and revitalize local cultures, economies, knowledge systems and environments;
• 4) Foster a perspective that is broad and radical (in the best sense of the word – ‘of the root’), by examining not only the pitfalls of globalization, but the potential of localization, globally.
  

Some of the key themes that emerged during the conference:

• ‘Free trade’ and the corporate-controlled global economy are damaging cultures, local economies and ecosystems everywhere;
• Localization – with particular emphasis on local food systems – has the potential to reverse much of that damage. (Inspiring stories of local food initiatives – from Detroit to Tokyo, from Peru to Gujarat and Udaipur – were shared during the conference);
• The destruction of small-scale diversified food systems lies behind a wide range of social, economic and environmental crises (violence, social disintegration, farmer suicides, global warming, depletion of fossil fuels, water scarcity, agrochemical pollution, loss of biodiversity, etc);
• Export-oriented production and market access through ‘free trade’ is NOT the way to alleviate poverty;
• Cultural affirmation is a key defense against the psychological pressure to ‘modernize’;
• The dominant Western worldview – with its emphasis on science, technology and economic growth – is blind to the viability and productivity of diverse local cultures and economies worldwide.

While there was broad consensus on the above themes, there was less agreement on the role of formal schooling. Some participants argued that breaking away from institutionalized education is the only way to free ourselves from corporate domination and to achieve true learning. Others felt that important work challenging the problems of Western-style schooling can and must be done within academia.

In order to continue the cross-fertilization of ideas that occurred during the conference, participants from both Italy and Rajasthan expressed interest in hosting future meetings on localization. We aslo intend to use our website to inform you about new projects and collaborations, inspired by the conference, as they come to fruition. In addition, we will be making available audio/video recordings of some of the lectures and conversations that occurred during the proceedings.

Reflections from some of the conference participants:

“I benefited greatly from hearing Helena's views about globalization and efforts to strengthen local initiatives. I am inspired and am thinking of how to infuse Abhivyakti's work with focus on localization. I plan to write in local papers about it as a starter. Many more activities will now follow. Thanks once again for inviting me and my team.”

– Nitin Paranjape
Abhivyakti Community Media, India

“I learned many things at the conference and feel greatly empowered to continue the work of invigorating and strengthening campesino families to recover their wisdom and the deep knowledge that they have had for thousands of years.”

– Eliana Amparo Apaza Espillico
PRATEC (Proyecto Andino de Tecnologías Campesinas)/Suma Yapu, Puno, Perú

“We have a lot of beautiful memories from our time in Leh. Thank you all for your wonderful hospitality while we were there and also for your openness to try different dialogue forms. The discussions on localization were also very useful for our entire team. We had many conversations about it on the return journey. We are very keen to continue to explore both how to collaborate more closely with ISEC as well as help to build this larger alliance on localization. I think there may be a lot of opportunities to connect it with the learning societies network.”

– Manish Jain
Shikshantar, Rajasthan, India

Selected conference participants:

• Roberto Paolo Imperiali
President, Circolo Culturale Ambientescienze, Cremona, Italy

Ambientescienze works to formulate and disseminate a vision of science and society where human values and environmental balance are the highest priorities. Roberto is also a member of the Amazonia Association, whch protects 170.000 ha of Amazonian Forest. (See www.amazonia.org for more information on this project.)

• Yoji Kamata
Chairperson, Atelier for Development and the Future, Tokyo, Japan

Yoji has collaborated with ISEC on several projects, including translating the Ancient Futures film into Japanese. He currently works on the following topics in Asia:
1) Educational reform based on traditional wisdom
2) The revitalization of traditional medicine
3) Sustainable society and traditional wisdom

• Debal Deb
Founder, Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies (CIS), West Bengal, India

CIS promotes the conservation of indigenous crop diversity in eastern India, where severe genetic erosion has already occurred. Partnering with the Research Foundation for Science, Technology & Ecology (RFSTE), CIS established Vrihi, the first folk rice gene bank in eastern India. Vrihi distributes folk crop seeds among farmers to promote in situ conservation of rare crop varieties. CIS also collaborates with other NGOs on conservation of species and habitats, on the economics of organic farming, and on campaigns against the commercial release of genetically modified organisms.

• Bertus Haverkort
COMPAS: International Network for Comparing and Supporting Endogenous Development, The Netherlands

Compas is an international program with 22 development organizations in South America, Asia, Africa and Europe, all committed to endogenous development in the fields of agriculture, health and natural resources. Compas draws attention to the holistic nature of indigenous knowledge. The activities of the partner organizations are directed towards understanding the diversity of rural peoples’ knowledge, encouraging local experimentation within farmers’ worldviews, and organizing intercultural dialogues on farmers’ knowledge, indigenous learning and experimentation. For more information, see www.compasnet.org

• Jinan Kodapully
Kunbham, Kerala, India

In 1993, Jinan started a movement in the small village of Aruvacode in North Kerala, which was once famous for its potters. With the influx of cheap industrial substitutes, these villagers had all but lost their traditional skills. With Jinan’s help, they explored the possibilities of terra-cotta suited for the modern context, and Kumbham was born. Today Kumbham – and the 80 potters that work with it – is hailed as a rare instance of a traditional artisan community rehabilitating itself through the very craft they have been alienated from. For more information about Jinan’s work, see www.kumbham.in and www.paradigmsofknowing.org

• Carol Black and Neal Marlens
Telluride, Colorado, USA

Carol Black and Neal Marlens are filmmakers and the ‘unschooling’ parents of two daughters, Isabel, 16, and Marina, 12. They have been active at the local and state levels in the grassroots movement – involving millions of families – to resist the culture of compulsory schooling in the United States. They are currently working on a documentary film about education.

• Verena Oberhöller
Institute of Political Science, University of Innsbruck, Austria

Verena is a doctoral candidate at the University of Innsbruck, conducting research into the impact of civilization on the local Tyrolean environment. She will use the research to compare sustainable livelihoods in other marginalized mountainous regions such as Ladakh.

• Eliana Amparo Apaza Espillico
Coordinator, Association Suma Yapu, Perú
PRATEC – El Proyecto Andino de Tecnologias Campesinas (The Andean Project of Peasant Technologies), Perú

PRATEC is an NGO working in Perú, Bolivia, and the North of Chile to invigorate Andean culture and agriculture. It works with peasants to revitalize the farm economy, strengthen diversity, and disseminate local wisdom. For more information, see www.pratec.org.pe

Suma Yapu is one of PRATEC’s ‘Nuclei of Andean Cultural Affirmation’. The group works to affirm, strengthen, and invigorate Andean culture and Andean peasant agriculture. Their goals are to formulate and execute projects to improve the quality of life of the ‘less favored’ peasant population; strengthen peasant wisdom and techniques of nurturance; conserve biodiversity and increase the availability of native seeds; and promote the diffusion of local knowledge, which provides a solution to the cultural erosion and socioeconomic problems of Andean populations.

• Manish Jain
Shikshantar: The People’s Institute for Rethinking Education and Development, Udaipur, Rajasthan, India

From the Shikshantar website: “After fifty years of so-called development efforts, and despite great scientific advancements, India (and the rest of the world) finds itself mired in a paralyzing socio-cultural, environmental and spiritual crisis - overwhelming in its scale, intensity and rate of growth.

“While education has been framed as the cure to this crisis, in reality, the factory model of schooling is part of the problem. Around the world, education systems have become commercialized ‘businesses’ which serve to stratify society, glorify militarism, devalue local knowledge systems and languages, manufacture unsustainable wants, breed discontent and frustration, stifle creativity, motivation and expression, and dehumanize communities.” For more, see www.swaraj.org/shikshantar

• Vandana Shiva
Navdanya/ Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Natural Resource Policy, New Delhi, India

From the Navdanya website: “Dr. Vandana Shiva is a physicist, ecologist, activist and author of many books. In India she has established Navdanya, a movement for biodiversity conservation and farmers' rights. She directs the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Natural Resource Policy." Her most recent book is Earth Democracy : Justice, Sustainability, and Peace. Her other books include: Biopiracy: The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge; Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply; Monocultures of the Mind : Perspectives on Biodiversity and Biotechnology.” For more information, see www.navdanya.org

• Rebecca Martusewicz
The EcoJustice Review, Eastern Michigan University, Michigan, USA

Rebecca is a professor of Social Foundations of Education at Eastern Michigan University (Ypsilanti, Michigan). She is one of the founders and editor of The EcoJustice Review, an internationally juried online journal. She also directs an MA program in EcoJustice Education in the Teacher Education Department at Eastern Michigan University. She works closely with C. A. Bowers and others on educational reform issues related to revitalizing the world’s diverse ecological and cultural commons. For more information about The EcoJustice Review, see www.ecojusticeeducation.org

• Johnny Lupinacci
The EcoJustice Review, Eastern Michigan University, Michigan, USA

Johhny Lupinacci is an instructor of Social Foundations of Education at Eastern Michigan University (Ypsilanti, Michigan). He is a founder and production editor of The EcoJustice Review, and is involved in grassroots community efforts to educate for strong sustainable communities. He is also the founder of a group of educators that work with members of the local community in Detroit, Michigan, to identify and strengthen relationships essential to a living-local sustainable community. Working closely with Rebecca Martusewicz and C.A. Bowers, he is committed to educational reform that recognizes diversity as an essential condition of life and identifies how institutions working under Western cultural assumptions, particularly schools, are a threat to survival.

• Gary Schnakenberg
Souhegan High School, Amherst, New Hampshire, USA, and
Keene State College, Keene, New Hampshire

As part of an initiative in Amherst, New Hampshire to develop sustainability education, Gary is helping to create an interdisciplinary senior High School seminar called “Food Systems and Sustainability” to be inaugurated in the 2006/2007 academic year. He has also begun work with Rebecca Martusewicz and other contributors to The EcoJustice Review to bring concepts of diversity, sustainability and ecojustice to high school students and the local Amherst community.