Mapping Global Childhood & Youth Futures (wiser , compassionate, participatory futures)

1. Mapping Global Childhood & Youth Futures(wiser, compassionate, participatory futures) Prof. Michalis Kontopodis Chair in Global Childhood & Youth Studies University of Leeds, UK https://essl.leeds.ac.uk/education/staff/690/professor-michalis-kontopodis

2. 2025: Global media & global childhood • UN specialized agency for ICTs: 830 million children & young people around the globe are online daily • 94% of all children and young people are using the Internet in so-called ‘developed countries’, and about 67% in ‘developing’/ 30% in ‘least developed’/ majority world • Constantly increasing number of 4.3 billion mobile broadband subscriptions globally & increasing inequalities • 2025:8 billion - SpaceX, Project Loon, Qualcomm, Huawei &Virgin (OneWeb): global connectivity to every human on earthat 1 megabyte per sec: 3D printing, AI, crowdfunding, block-chain transactions & cryptocurrencies

3. From 1925 to… 2025 • Jean Piaget – Professor in Switzerland • Margaret Mead – Research in Samoa • Lev Vygotsky – Soviet Union • Henri Bergson – Paris • Year of birth of ZygmuntBauman & Frantz Fanon (decolonial psychology) Different views on Childhood & Youth => • Also my trajectory i.e. interdisciplinary approach (cf.The Future of Childhood, by Allan Prout, 2005)

4. Special thanks to… • Prof M. Hildebrand-Nilshon, Prof B. Fichtner & Prof Christoph Wulf: For myPhD at Free University Berlin (2007) • Prof Anna Stetsenko: For my visitingfellowship – The Graduate Centre, City University of New York (2009) • Prof St. Beck & A. Mol: For my post-doc scholarships in social anthropology at Humboldt University Berlin & Uni Amsterdam • Prof Fernanda Liberali: For my visitingprofessorship at Pontíficia Universidade Católica de São Paulo (since 2010) • UK colleagues: Prof H. Daniels, Prof M. Urban, Prof J. Marsh & especially Prof Kate Pahl: 2016-2017 – linking with local communities in the broader area of Manchester & Sheffield • Friends & family: Myrrh Domingo; A. Salami; M. Mottschall; D. Sofianopoulou; M. Boletsi; TomekWochnik; Eva Fotiadi; EviDimitriadou; Ioannis, Chrysoula, Manos & Dimitris Kontopodis

5. From 1925 to 2025: Questions& Objectives • How do children & young people grow up in today’s world which is becoming more and more hyper-connected & at the same time more and more divided? • How can we explore this question? • What are the implications for education and pedagogy across online & offline/ formal & informal contexts? • Not one person’s task: I am to introduce a new area of research: Global Childhood & Youth Studies & a new network: Inclusion, Childhood & Youth (ICY) – Across centres/ departments at the University of Leeds & Global Network

6. Mapping Global Childhood & Youth Futures • What is the ‘Global’: Debates on Universalism vs. Otherness • Childhood & Youth Futures: Case studies (Freedom Writers, Landless Children, HyperConnecting Youth) • Mapping vs. representing – artistic online pedagogies, contribution vs. participation & globalisation from below • Concluding methodological proposition: mapping global futures with children and young people

7. Projects & partners — special thanks: Urban Margins & Schooling: Berlin, New York, São Paulo Indigenous & Countryside Education & Sustainability in Brazil: UniAmsterdam: A. Mol & Brazil: E. Foerste; J. Rodrigues et al. Memory, Mediation & Imagination: Humboldt University Berlin/ various EU countries: St. Beck, J. Niewöhner, D. Papadopoulos, V. Matera, A. Kozin

8. Projects & partners — special thanks: Digital Childhood & Youth: University of Crete, IOE, Free University Berlin, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Moscow State Uni & PUC-SP: F. Liberali, C. Magalhaes & N. Baitello et al. Play, Making & Virtual Reality Technologies: University of Roehampton: M. Urban/ University of Sheffield/ J. Marsh &  University of Helsinki/ KristiinaKumpulainen + Uni Crete: M. Pourkos, M. Dafermos & C. Varvantakis + AMS: Bert van Oers

9. Researcher ID: C-8568-2013https://leeds.academia.edu/mkontopodishttps://twitter.com/m_kontopodis?lang=en Most importantly: Special thanks to the children, young persons & teachers participating in research projects — see acknowledgement sections & further details in publications Quick reference today – for details on the various projects: https://mkontopodis.wordpress.com

10. A. Universalism & modern cosmopolitanism

12. Kohlberg’s theory

13. “If everyone has access to the tools, knowledge and opportunities of connectivity, we can give voice to the voiceless, and power to the powerless. When we’re all connected, we can achieve the global goals” Mark Zuckerberg Sept. 26, 2015 New York so-called “Global Citizen Festival” (discourse beginning with Immanuel Kant’s Perpetual Peace/ Zumewigen Frieden, 1795)

15. B. Otherness, hospitability and decoloniality

16. “Recognising not only the stranger as being the other but also the stranger in oneself” (Silverstone, 2006) Also: Anthropology of childhood & youth by M. Mead et al. Silverstone, R. (2006). Media and morality: On the rise of the mediapolis. Cambridge: Polity Press. Collins, P. H. (1990). Black feminist thought. London: Routledge.

17. Meta-analysis of European & North-American global citizenship projects e.g.:

18. C. Global media & global childhoods • UN specialized agency for ICTs: 830 million children & young people around the globe are online daily • 94% of all children and young people are using the Internet in so-called ‘developed countries’, and about 67% in ‘developing’/ 30% in ‘least developed’ • Constantly increasing number of 4.3 billion mobile broadband subscriptions globally • 2025: 8 billion - SpaceX, Project Loon, Qualcomm, Huawei &Virgin (OneWeb): global connectivity to every human on earthat 1 megabyte per sec: 3D printing, AI, crowdfunding, block-chain transactions & cryptocurrencies

19. “[G]lobalisationlooks now inescapable and irreversible. The point of no return has been reached—and passed. There is no way back. Our interconnections and interdependence are already global. Whatever happens in one place influences the lives and life chances of people in all other places… Our mutual dependency is planet-wide and so we are already, and will remain indefinitely, objectively responsible for one another. There are, however, few if any signs that we who share the planet are willing to take up in earnest the subjective responsibility for that objective responsibility of ours” (Bauman, 2009: Does Ethics Have a Chance in a World of Consumers? p. 27)

20. Video nasAldeiasParticipatory Video & Cinema in Indigenous Communities [already since 1990 – example from 2012]

21. D. Debt &global financial crisis • http://www.nationaldebtclocks.org/debtclock/unitedstates(with 90% of all transactions in foreign currency being in $ and 60% of global currency reserves) • http://www.nationaldebtclock.co.uk • World/ China: https://www.usdebtclock.org/world-debt-clock.html • $244 trillion world’s total debt • In London: http://www.londonspovertyprofile.org.uk (cf. research by Gill Main – University of Leeds)

22. Children & young people today • Overconsumption and overproduction • Imagination of social mobility/ affluent living — yet in individualist/ narcissist ways • At the same time: indebted& threatened by unemployment or precarity • in the worst case: also displaced into non-places such as provisionary refugee camps or urban slums • This is not a temporary, geographically limited and exceptional condition but a long-lasting

23. Media & Overconsumption: Dorm SHOP with ME https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzBSptei1Bk Amazon wish lists and online branding Schwartz, B. & Neff, G. (2019). The gendered affordances of Craigslist “new-in-town girls wanted” ads. New Media & Society. Banet-Weiser, S. (2011). Branding the post-feminist self: Girls’ video production and YouTube. Peter Lang. Senft, T. (2012). Micro-celebrity and the branded self. In Blackwell Companion to New Media Dynamics, ed. by J. Burgess & A. Bruns, Blackwell.

24. Media & Critical Perspectives

25. Media & Critical Perspectives: ‘Occupied Dreams’ (person in focus vs. person in context) • Female actor — white Greek — yet IN context • Same media can be used in different ways • Self branding vs. reflection & co-experiencing crises • https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=sl7QMkddZH0 • https://mkontopodis.wordpress.com/hypercom

26. Diego VelazquezLas Meninas1656 (Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid)

27. Critical moment for new developmentsFrom media to pedagogy Concept of crisis in Vygotsky / post-Vygotskian research From Greekkrisis/ κρίσις ‘decision,’ from κρίνειν ‘decide’: • a time of intense difficulty, trouble, or danger: the current economic crisis | a family in crisis • the turning point of a disease when an important change takes place, indicating either recovery or death • timing when a difficult or important decision must be made: a crisis point of history(vs. linear understandings of time & development e.g. in Piaget — not everywhere & always same possibilities — therefore: participatory methods).

28. Pedagogy – Case study 01:Freedom Writers, Long Beach, California, 1994 – 1998 • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PahVp7p3XHg&index=2&list=PL9CCC890650706F6A • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HU_BueZZNd8 • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDq9o9j3-CU • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9axXKI3zBgU • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zz3TZH-CCS4 • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=797_cGr4pwE Zoltán, Dörnyei & Kubaniyova, Maggie (2013). Motivating Learners, Motivating Teachers.Cambridge University Press. Walker, Richard (2019). Pictures of a Gone City: Tech and the Dark Side of Prosperity in the San Francisco Bay Area. Oakland, CA: PM Press/ Spectre.

29. “Growing up, I always assumed I would either drop out of school or get pregnant. So when Ms. G. started talking about college, it was like a foreign language to me. Didn’t she realize that girls like me don’t go to college? Except for Ms. G., I don’t know a single female who’s graduated from high school, let alone gone to college ( . . . ). So when Ms. G. kept saying that “I could do anything,” “go anywhere,” and “be anyone”— even the President, I thought she was crazy. I always thought that the only people who went to college were rich white people. How did she expect me to go to college? After all, I live in the ghetto and my skin is brown.” (Gruwell, 1999, pp. 202-204)

30. Pedagogy – Case study 02: Pedagogiada Terra Landless Rural Workers’ Movement (“Movimento dos TrabalhadoresRuraisSemTerra”) founded in Paraná in 1984 http://landlessmov2010.wordpress.com • New knowledge for yet unknown futures • Focus on technical innovation & social justice/ biodiversity at the same time • Specific teacher training • Linking community life & school-based learning • 1.5 million from various ethnic/ racial backgrounds

31. Remembering collective pasts => imagining collective futures(belonging vs. individualism) Present -development- (?) Past Future mediation https://mkontopodis.wordpress.com/timemory/

32. La Via Campesina - The peasants' way • defends small-scale sustainable agriculture • a way to promote social justice and dignity • strongly opposes corporate driven agriculture and transnational companies that are destroying people and nature • currently about 182 local and national organizations in 81 countries from Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas • altogether representing more than 200 million farmers • https://viacampesina.org/en/who-are-we/what-is-la-via-campesina/

33. Theory: Potential vs. virtual development • potential development in which an already given/ expected future is ‘realized’ i.e. made manifest • virtual development is ‘actualized’ when development takes a different course than what is laid out (collective memory, imagination) • much less the work of the individual – emphasis on cultures of collaboration (H. Daniels/ A. Stetsenko) • Media/ mediation, images/ imagination are key in this frame, so is pedagogy • virtual development in the sense that it enables further new relationships & qualitative changes to happen in the future

34. Virtual:three interrelated meanings • rather popular sense of not physically existing as such but made to appear by software e.g. virtual reality, or virtual literacies • in the sense of virtue i.e. excellence, potency, value (Latin virtus) • in the sense of being capable of producing a certain effect (traced back to the use of the word in the 15th century) • Bergson/ Deleuze – an aspect of reality that is ideal, but nonetheless real. The virtual is “as if” it were real, but not so in fact – therefore conveying dreams, memories, imaginations etc.

35. Current project: Case study 03 From local to global & back: Hyper-Connecting Youth Manchester: Reform Radio - James Walklate et al. & Kate Pahl, Lou Harvey, J. Duggan & Fernanda Liberali & Brazilian partners

36. Creating inclusive online communities: Guidelines for teachers, social workers & media designershttps://www.reformradio.co.uk/

37. Methodology: mapping vs. re-presenting • Representing does not imply creating something new • it means FOLLOWING the lines that are already there. • Mapping means CREATING new pathways WITH children and young people (cf. Deleuze & Guattari: 1000 Plateaus) • Not only in space but also in time i.e. linking memory & imagination/ cf. Campbell, E., Pahl, K. et.al., 2018: Re-Imagining Contested Communities) • Not only participation,but CONTRIBUTION (in this sense: new media)

38. We Make the Road by Walking1990

39. Outlook: global = from below • Global debt has created possibilities for parents, children and young people to imagine living affluent lives • This imagination is often channelled towards individualist –even narcissistic– modes of consumption & linked with exploitation i.e. fear of unemployment & marginalisation • Proposition for Pedagogy: Sharing collective memories => mapping collective futures is key in overcoming individualism Media/ mediation, images/ imagination • Proposition for Methodology: Mapping GLOBALchildhood & youth futures FROM BELOW, in participatory, collective i.e. de-centred, multi-voiced ways: this is not only a possibility – it is a necessity.

40. Of course this is not one person’s task… • New area of research: Global Childhood & Youth Studies & Inclusion, Childhood & Youth Network (ICY) – University of Leeds & Global Network - special thanks to: • Members of the Centre for Childhood, Education and Social Justice i.e. Inclusion, Childhood & Youth Network including our collaborators from across Centres & Departments: Caroline Dyer, Angharad Beckett, Neil Morris & Bronwen Swinnerton • Senior Leadership Team: Jeremy Higham, AntheaHucklesby, Norma M Clement, A. Deignan, R. Swanwick, Richard Badger • Research Business Team: Fiona Scarth, Louise Williams, Jouna Ukkonen, Marie Fordham

41. ‘Mapping’ entails co-production across local & global contexts: • UNICEF (2018). Strategic Plan 2018-2021. UNICEF Division of Communication,_https://www.unicef.org/publications/files/UNICEF_Strategic_Plan_2018-2021.pdf • UK Children’s Commissioner (2017). Growing Up Digital, https://app-t1pp-cco.azurewebsites.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Growing-Up-Digital-Taskforce-Report-January-2017_0.pdf • UNESCO (2016). Knowledge Societies Policy Handbook, https://fr.unesco.org/sites/default/files/knowledge_socities_policy_handbook_0.pdf • United Nations (2018). YOUTH 2030. Working With and For Young People, https://www.un.org/youthenvoy/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/18-00080_UN-Youth-Strategy_Web.pdf

42. There is always hope… https://mkontopodis.wordpress.com/