Democracy Ateneo Summary 1-19-13

Compañer@s,

What follows is a brief summary of the Universidad de la Tierra Califas' Democracy Ateneo convened on Saturday, January 19, 2013. Six of us gathered and began our conversation with a brief overview of our facilitation process noting our use of agreements as a critical facilitation tool for what we hope functions as a space of encounter. As part of that process, we recognized the importance of respectful listening as well as additional agreements of generating questions and producing summaries. In addition, we agreed to share brief updates of our current projects before generating questions for the afternoon.

It is worth noting that in our review of our efforts to promote a collective facilitation strategy we observed that the initial go-around of updates not only allows participants to present current projects, but it also allows for a discussion of struggles including providing an opportunity to share any issues that they may be confronting. More importantly, the initial check-in works as a diagnostic making observable some of the key projects, critical struggles, strategic concepts, and useful resources the group should be aware and might want to pursue further. Thus, it provides a political cartography of the struggles of the community. Similarly, the questions generated by participants following the check-in also provide a diagnostic alerting the assembled group about specific issues important to individual participants and the community as a whole. Similarly, the agreement to produce summaries not only documents our process for the day, but it also facilitates a critical opportunity to continue to reflect on the knowledge generated during the ateneo. The circulation of a summary draft provides an opportunity to add information and share additional insights immediately following the gathering.

The initial check-in revealed youth remain a primary concern for active people in our community. Projects ranged from work in national youth of color networks that highlight youth development strategies associated with leadership skills to healing strategies that "activate the young warrior." More local projects include teacher watch and know your rights trainings currently underway in San Jose's local high schools. The 50.50 collective's recent newsletter, The Phoenix <https://www.box.com/s/lew8er0m7lh6hld96moj>, documents some of the local struggles of youth in relation to community safety.

Many are concerned about knowledge production generally and research in particular. For example, in San Jose women's groups are investigating a wide range of research topics that impact their daily lives. What are the logistics of connecting the number of militant research projects across the Bay?  What are the insights that they provide about collective strategies of knowledge production and how do we archive them? What is the relation that knowledge production plays in relation to democratic practice and how does that work in the space opened up, for example, by the Zapatistas? On a practical level we asked how can we build a better "network" between the Uni-Tierras in Califas, Oaxaca, Chiapas, Puebla and, more recently, Toronto.

As the ateneo announcement made clear, many of us are focused on the most recent mobilization of the Zapatistas. How do we engage the political space generated by the Zapatistas? More to the point, how do we analyze Mexico's current decomposition? How do we highlight the U.S's role in the current political violence?

The connection with other communities of struggle included the Filipino community as well as Chiapas. We asked how we can reconnect movement in locally in San Jose. How do we move be activist redundancy while at the same time connect with communities such as those from Oaxaca who are represented in our region?

The reflection based on the questions generated in the go-around introduced the critical issue of "differential citizenship" in relation to "differential abandonment" and "differential inclusion." The challenges we face in the current restructuring of capital pose a number of problems, including how to determine what forces might be "de-activating" us from organizing politically. Whether it is youth who may or may not be on our "frequency" or houseless members of our community struggling in "jacalitos" quickly erected in abandon lots, we are faced with engaging people as a community. How do we "wake-up" youth or citizens who have been de-activated?

Questions:
1. How can we build systems that "grow abundance" and generate our own economies and well-being?
2. How can we engage the Non-profit Industrial Complex strategically?
3. What are the challenges of producing knowledge collectively and making sure that it contributes to the regeneration of community?
4. How do we re-learn to recognize different kinds of collective learning?
5. How do we assess our success?
6. How do we shift our focus so we can "learn" from "catastrophic" events, e.g. the recent environmental catastrophe in the Philippines, the response of Tepito during the 1985 earthquake?
7. How do we respond to "catastrophic" events including major acts of repression, e.g. the Drug War?
8. How effective has the Democracy Ateneo been advancing or engaging Democracy and democratic practices?
9. How do we collectively produce knowledge that does more than document state and capital's excess?
10. What does the "mirror of violence" as understood by Ivan Illich look like in the current conjuncture?

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