Paulo Freire: Voices and silences

1 Written in Lisbon, Portugal, as Fulbright Scholar at the Universidade Lusófona de Humanidades e Tecnologias, June 20, 2022.

¹

Abstract

Freire is one of the most powerful voices challenging the hegemony of bureaucratic and banking educational systems. His voice was particularly influential impacting revolutionary processes and progressive social movements while at the same time learning from their practices. However, some silences in his oeuvres requires further examination. In this article, we focus on the silences of Freire regarding education and its relationship with work and labor, gender issues, and citizenship building.

Keywords:

• Voices and silences
• social movements
• citizenship building
• education
• labor and work
• gender
• feminism and Freire

Notes

1 Written in Lisbon, Portugal, as Fulbright Scholar at the Universidade Lusófona de Humanidades e Tecnologias, June 20, 2022.

2 “Problem-posing methods use codifications of generative themes as their starting point. Essentially, these are concrete representations of an aspect of people’s lived reality” (…) “A generative theme is an issue about which people feel strongly and are willing to take some action about” (Beck & Purcell, 2013) https://eprints.gla.ac.uk/80432/1/80432.pdf (accessed 14/9/2022).

3 The least one could say about criticizing the ontological and epistemological nature of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is that the multiculturalism critique believes that the agenda of Sustainable Development Goals put forward by the United Nations has to be re-oriented to recognise the need to respect all forms of life on the planet. An agenda based on the wrong assumptions will rarely achieve the right results. This involves very complex questions related to the meaning of life and the social functions of education and learning in a context, which attempts to contemplate life in all its diversity and pluriversality (Ireland, 2021; English & Mayo, 2021; Milana & Tarozzi, 2021).

4 https://www.javeriana.edu.co/blogs/boviedo/files/pedagogc3adas-eman-lc3b3pez-cardona-y-calderc3b3n.pdf.

5 Keep in mind that there are radical regressive social movements as well. For instance, the “MAGA country” in the USA, a collection of fervent and violent worshippers of Donald Trump animated by the goal of dismantling democracy and establishing a one party system, on parallel with the construction of a neo-Fascist regime. The first attempt on January 6th, 2020 failed, but it could also be repeated in the next years, and particularly in the election for president in 2024 in USA. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2021/jan-6-insurrection-capitol/.

6 Concepts such as Ubuntu in some parts of Africa, or Sumak Kansay in Latin America are visionary. These concepts can be translated as good living in harmony with our communities, ourselves, and most importantly, our living, breathing environment. For a Marxist analysis of the concept, see Boron (2015).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Carlos Alberto Torres

Carlos Alberto Torres is Distinguished Professor of Education and Director of the Paulo Freire Institute at UCLA. He previously held the UNESCO Chair on Global Learning and Global Citizenship Education (2016-2020) and is past President of the Comparative and International Education Society (1997) and of the World Council of Comparative Education Societies (2013-2016), and is a Foreign Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and Corresponding Member of the Mexican Academy of Sciences.