ESREA-Seminar "Between Global and Local: Adult Learning and Development"

The third Seminar of the ESREA-Network "Between Global and Local: Adult Learning and Development" in Magdeburg will focus on "landscapes" of adult learning and development caught up in the tension of change.

Magdeburg as the venue of this III European Seminar after Faro and Wroclaw brings the work of the network closer to the physical centre of Europe and at the same time to a region experiencing many of the problems of marginality. This city and region, with historically rich patterns of identity and a social memory embodied in past and present social movements for local development, education and democracy, provide the stage for the questions we wish to pose.

With "learning landscapes", it is in order to encourage a wide discussion that takes in the shifting nature of learning and development, the physical landscapes of place in time, and the notional landscapes that are still unfolding. Learning landscapes as local experiences and social movements, such as those which in the last 20 years have confronted the waves of change that accompanied the collapse of communism and the re-formation of civil society in large parts of Europe, to name just experiences "closest to home". The spaces available for community action and learning shall be examined, which represent critical landscapes of learning and action as answers to new models of consumption, education and work and the new hierarchies of power (and marginalisation) which are taking shape now and tomorrow.

Source: ESREA