اکتشافات در آموزش یکپارچه کار بین فرهنگی : فرآیند آموزشی برای جهان وارونه

This paper investigates how work integrated learning (WIL) can be re-imagined/re-enacted as collaborative playgrounds of networks. To do this we first establish the working context for these reflections by exploring fragments of biography and the immediate catalyst which was a recent seminar held over 5 days, beginning in the rural Swedish town of Ed and, for the last 2 days, at University West in Trollhättan. We then set out to explore the normative and theoretical context of our approach before finally moving to an exploration of the concept of WIL via CLA and scenarios. Our overall goal is to describe some features of an expanded concept of WIL as it relates to intercultural learning. In doing this we hope to generate processes that facilitate the kind of learning necessary if we are to enable teachers and students to build sustainable futures they can realistically aspire to. This paper proposes a creative engagement with a feature of our modern cultural and educational landscape: work integrated learning (WIL). Creativity's role, from a cultural point of view, is to challenge conventions – not least the academic one of written style – in order to offer other possible futures to those engaged in cultural reproduction [1]. We propose to weave our story into the account of an event that pushed the boundaries of WIL and us. Yet we aim to develop an open and reflexive futures context that helps us frame the cultural terrain of WIL in such a way that we and our students are not confined to the linear discourse often adopted in higher education institutions when the funding for such programmes comes up for debate. So we wish to begin this exploration at the beginning by acknowledging that the work of cultural play has for us been a life long process. To begin at the beginning, as Alice was advised by the King of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland, is a good place to start. However, we will not take the King's advice of going through to the end, as for us who follow the rhizomes of cultural play, there is no end [2] and [3]. The present is open and the future beckons. Our purpose is to explore a way of learning that relates to a growing rhizome, learning webs of conviviality/playgrounds for new stories. We do so in relation to an annual seminar on Interculturality and Sustainability at University West, Sweden. The theme for the 2009 seminar was ‘Collaborative playgrounds in-between’ and it incorporated divergent voices from Tanzania, Bolivia, India, Australia, Uganda and Sweden. As these voices flow together a chorus emerges in which biography, as lines of flight across both space and time, weave together. Two of the authors (Bjurström and Sannum) have shared this play for many years, as the following anecdotes attest, and we find the finger prints, like resonant echoes, to our play together this year in Ed and Trollhättan. • 1969 ∘ “Happy Easter”, shouted a strange figure after having torn up the door. Amazed, we got up from the kitchen table just to see the back of a tiny Easter witch (Sannum) who ran away across the fields. On the hall floor was a triangular letter filled with Easter candy. “Run - catch her!” howled Dad. I was stunned. “Why did she not stay enough for thanks?” Dad, originating from the area told us about the Dalsland custom of the Easter letter and the subsequent compulsory Easter witch hunt. Second to seeing a black man in the bakery at Brunnsbo Square, this was the most exotic thing, I (Bjurström) in my then four-year-life had experienced. ∘ “But what is This?” we ask, whilst in Pettersson's henhouse. It was packed from floor to ceiling with the most unlikely things. “Mom bought them at an auction, it's tights for the circus”, explains Miriam, daughter of a collecting mother with a taste for the odd. “I bet we can sew them together and use them for fishing in the river.” ∘ On a gloomy November day, in the ruins of a barn, we move slowly and ponder the traces of activity we see. The ash turns everything grey. We are the last survivors. A pitchfork, a part of a bridle, a wheelbarrow and some wheel nuts are brushed clean, put on high and saved. “Well, what do we do now then?” “How do we survive from here?” • 2009 ∘ A seminar entitled “On Interculturality and Sustainability: A collaborative playground in between”, takes place in the same area. The organisers (Bjurström and Sannum), who have temporarily left Petterssońs henhouse, have prepared it mostly by formulating an open, clear and intentional invitation. The invitation is sent out to students, networks, colleagues, companies. The play at Gamla Real in Ed and at University West will soon be staged with people from Tanzania, Uganda, Australia, Bolivia, India, Bohuslän, etc all with a common interest in and commitment to exploring interculturality and sustainability. Playfulness is infectious. It invites all present to open, in a non-threatening way, to emergence. Institutionally the intercultural seminar is the third of its kind held in Sweden and was arranged by University West, AkHUt (Academy for Sustainable Development) and Studieförbundet Vuxenskolan. It is part of a measure at University West with a special focus on how Intercultural WIL can be developed in relation to a flexible network. This tension between meaning making process and structural frame brings energy to the creative encounter in which learning paradigms rub up against one another and the resultant ‘heat’ shapes the between [4], the point of encounter, like hot wax in a crucible.

No scenario is likely to be the future but they help us immensely when it comes to formulating questions about current practice. It is important not to let our own incredulity blunt scenario generation. We need to take risks when imagining the future in order to free the mind from its own innate conservatism. Think about the issues and let them cross pollinate in order to generate richer more plausible futures. Allow hopes and fears to come into play. Let your values out to ‘flex their muscles’. All positive futures are possible futures, so hope is a key asset in this process [22]. Linking the process of scenario building with a CLA methodology allows the researcher to expose narrative threads and generate new ones. CLA is an important tool in the futures field as it helps practitioners develop positive images of the future that are anchored in the real-life aspirations of those stakeholders engaged in the work of social change. CLA recognises that human consciousness itself is the main agent in social change [17]. It links up with the work of Richard Slaughter who argues for a foresight methodology premised on the recognition that all humans have the capacity to look to the future and anticipate and thus plan for possible developments [23]. Institutions, too, as a working product of many consciousnesses, have the capacity to develop foresight in order to best cater to future needs—be they economic, social or personal [24]. As futurist Sohail Inayatullah points out, it is through the interaction of self, other and environment that innovation ‘from the edge’ can occur [15]. The intercultural work promoted in the course at University West attempts to promote such innovation from the edge by affirming non-linear and non-hierarchical rhizomic processes. This work is called forth as the result of intercultural encounter. It is based on a commitment to sustainable development. The rhizome is a broad church and ways to do this work are limitless. For us it lies in playfulness and the possibilities immanent in context [25]. We believe that creative and open process loosens the bonds of habit (the weight of context) and creates the heart space for such immanence to begin emerging. It can be very challenging to set up and remain in an “as if” world. Actually, it is about living the realization that one cannot have, nor even should try to have, control. Rather we need to be present to what is emerging, with curiosity to see what is becoming while relying on partners and networks [26]. These are like rhizomes that are growing where there is energy and sustenance. As with the open space concept, those who come are the right people at the right place to discuss the right things. We have no ambition to cover everything. This is in no way opposed to critical thinking but extends it, as Ananta Kumar Giri argues, to an invitation to assess the quality of our relationships [27]. We are still playing and will continue to do so for at least another 40 years, because as Sven-Eric Liedman told the teddy bears: “it is fatal not to play”.