A commons-based academia

AndreasRoos

Hi all,

I read Dave Darby's article on resilience.org and I immediately thought I would write here. I am working as a lecturer in Sweden but I am becoming increasingly disillusioned by the hierarchical structure, the minimal time for research and the lack of academic freedom within the university system.

For this reason (and many other reasons besides) me and some colleagues have started thinking about the possibilities of alternative arrangement for higher education and research. My idea is to funnel disillusioned, rejected and overworked academics into commons-based alternatives for scholarly work. I'd be happy with any suggestions, ideas or already existing initiatives associated with this idea.

All the best
Andreas

osedax

AndreasRoos

Hi Andreas, good to have you here. I'm also an academic in Higher Education (PhD student), and also frustrated with things. I briefly mentioned experiencing a similar feeling of disillusionment in my intro post on the Growing the Commons substack.

To Katja's above list, I'd add the Institut de Tremayes as an example -- though my background is in ecology, so the Institut meshes pretty neatly into what I am doing academically.

I would definitely be interested in helping you & your colleagues out, in whatever form that might take!

katjad

Hi Andreas,

Thanks for your post!

I recently became aware of initiatives in the US that offer alternative higher education, mostly in the humanities.

There is the Mimbres School for example that I learned about on this forum actually.

And here is an article (two, really) about the phenomenon that the author calls para-academia.
https://elftheory.substack.com/p/what-is-para-academia

Perhaps you can get in touch with people/initiatives mentioned there to ask about their experiences, if relevant to what you want to do.

I know of an initiative that provides alternative education here in Bristol (Shift Practical Sustainability Course, see also recent Low Impact post), though it is not scholarly. But it might still be of interest.