Abstract

I have previously argued that open education is a liberal project with a focus on the freedom of things rather than the freedom of people (Winn, Joss. 2012. "Open Education: From the Freedom of Things to the Freedom of People." In "Towards Teaching in Public: Reshaping the Modern University", edited by Michael Neary, Howard Stevenson, and Les Bell, 133-147. London: Continuum). Furthermore, I have argued that despite an implicit critique of private property with its emphasis on "the commons", the literature on open education offers no corresponding critique of academic labour (Neary, Mike, and Joss Winn. 2012. "Open Education: Common(s), Commonism and the New Common Wealth." "Ephemera: Theory & Politics in Organization" 12 (4): 406-422). In this paper, I develop my critical position that an emancipatory form of education must work towards the emancipation of teachers and students "from" labour, the dynamic, social, creative source of value in capitalism. In making this argument, I first establish the fundamental characteristics of academic labour. I then offer a "form-analytic" critique of open access, followed by a corresponding critique of its legal form. Finally, I critically discuss the potential of "open cooperatives" as a transitional organisational form for the production of knowledge through which social relations become "transparent in their simplicity" (Marx, Karl. 1976. "Capital", Vol. 1. London: Penguin Classics, 172).

Citation

Winn, J. (2015). Open Education and the Emancipation of Academic Labour. Learning, Media and Technology, 40(3), 385-404. Retrieved August 13, 2024 from https://www.learntechlib.org/p/168465/.

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Keywords

• Access to Education
• Cooperatives
• Criticism
• Educational Attitudes
• Freedom
• Interpersonal Relationship
• Labor
• Open Education
• Political Attitudes
• Social Systems