Paulo Freire's encounters with communication
There is no shadow of a doubt about what Paulo Freire represents in the field of education in Brazil and in the world. His work, related to pedagogy, has been translated into more than 30 languages and is among the three most cited references in academic works in the world. But Freire's legacy went beyond the walls of the classroom and spread to many other fields of action and reflection . In the year of its centenary, this presence was intensely and abundantly felt and celebrated.
The question asked in this essay is how to find Freire in communication? The most objective answer is in practice . When it comes to how the field of popular communication is consolidated in Latin America, Washington Uranga, Daniel Prieto Castillo, Aníbal Orué Pozzo and Cicilia Peruzzo, among others (see book “ The evolution of popular communication in Latin America ”) suggest Clearly, practice came first and, from there, the consolidation of a thought that looks at practice to base concepts that, in turn, can feed practice again and establish the virtuous circle of communicational praxis.
In this sense, Freire works as a theoretical reference, but also -and, perhaps, mainly- as a unifying element for all the people who make communication a force to build social, democratic and environmental justice . In fact, it is very difficult to separate Freire from the popular movement in Latin America. The intellectual Freire was born in the midst of this movement to, to the extent that he manages to systematize the rationality of his practices, ground it and encourage its permanent reinvention. The Brazilian researcher and communicator Francisco das Chagas de Morais, deeply investigated the evolution of the notion and practice of popular education in Brazil and in relation to a similar movement in Colombia (see thesis " The interdiscourse in popular education: a comparative study between MEB (Brazil) and APCO (Colombia) ”). Morais places Freire as an active and influential presence in the Popular Culture Movement of Recife, at the beginning of the 1960s. This and several other actions, with the decisive participation of the Catholic Church, constitute efforts to value popular culture, through the organization and animation of groups dedicated to the fight against illiteracy, through educational practices rooted in the local culture and aimed at raising awareness among the population.
At the same time, a diverse and expressive popular communication movement emerged throughout Latin America. At the grassroots, in the local communities, these movements are born and grow together, questioning exogenous models far removed from the reality of the people, manufacturing and claiming the legitimacy of practices that make more sense in their day-to-day lives and in the context of their struggles. . Freire becomes one of the most important intellectual voices in this entire process.
And why does a pedagogical reference become so important in the field of communication? First, because the way in which Freire associates the notions of communication and education makes it possible to understand communication beyond instruments . The different dynamics of communication, including the media, are not tools that are used to fulfill specific functions in popular movements. They are part of them. In this conception, communication becomes a kind of seam that allows the movement to be built: its identity, its way of relating internally and with the world, its faith, its rites, its hopes and horizons.
The essay Communication or Extension? , written by Freire during his exile in Chile, condemns communication practices that do nothing more than impose action models on farmers. Freire emphasizes that this vertical communication, in which the media are nothing more than instruments of transmission of what he calls “communiqués”, ignores local knowledge and needs . Emancipation cannot arise from it. On the contrary, in dialogic communication, made with the people, there is the only possibility of liberation, because it allows people to stop being objects of stories written by others, to be creative subjects of their own stories.
Seen in this way, communication is also a process that accompanies popular movements in their development over time . It is not punctual, it is not at the service of sporadic events, but it adapts to the movement, facing its opportunities and challenges. Communication and education go together in this process because the struggle is the result and the engine of learning, because knowledge occurs through mediation between different people and with the world.
Secondly, the same association between education and communication allows the construction of a completely different theoretical framework for the field of communication as a whole: a dialogical theory of communication , which is disruptive because it neither asks for consensus nor is based on the symbolic suppression of inequalities – in opposition to Habermas' communicative theory, which presumes the possibility of consensus between interlocutors whose differences are suspended as if they were all equal. The Freirean ontology of communication is oriented towards cultivating unity instead of uniformity, pluralism instead of anarchism, and the collective instead of individualism. Thus, it recognizes inequalities in light of power asymmetries, which makes parity a fundamental requirement for communication; diversity in value and source of knowledge; and the collective in guiding principle of all actions.
To learn more about Freire's encounters with communication
Unlike many of the people who contributed texts to this edition of Punto de Encuentro, I did not know Freire personally. I was not lucky enough to be his student. I never heard or saw him at a conference. Although we are contemporaries in a part of our lives, we have never been in the same environment.
I met Freire through the voice and experience of popular communicators in Latin America. And, since 2019, I have met Freire through the accounts of colleagues in different parts of the world, through my research work at Loughborough University in London. In collaboration with Professor Thomas Tufte, who did have the good fortune to meet Freire repeatedly, we organized several seminars and publications on Paulo Freire's legacy in communication and the development of civil society. These materials show reflections on Freire's work and performance throughout the world and are available for consultation:
In Portuguese and English :
Dossier Paulo Freire, 100 years . Matrizes Magazine, v.15, n. 3 (October / December 2021): https://www.revistas.usp.br/matrizes
Seminar “Paulo Freire Centennial: 7 conversations in preparation for the next 100 years ” (videos of the conferences): https://www.paulofreirecentennial.org/videos/
In Spanish and English :
Special Issue 2020: The legacy of Paulo Freire. Roles and challenges of Social Movements . Commons. Journal of Communication and Digital Citizenship, 9(2): https://revistas.uca.es/index.php/cayp/issue/view/432 https://revistas.uca.es/index.php/cayp/issue /view/432
In English :
Special Issue 2020: Freire's vision of development and social change – past experiences, present challenges and perspectives for the future . International Communication Gazette, 82: 5, August: https://journals.sagepub.com/toc/gazb/82/5
In Portuguese :
Suzina, A.C., Tufte, T. & Jiménez-Martínez, C. (2020). What is Paulo Freire's message for today's days?: Dialogues on the relevance of Freire's thought to understand Brazil today. International Journal of Communication and Development, 11, 11-18: https://revistas.usc.gal/index.php/ricd/article/view/6543
In French :
Suzina, A.C. (2021). Paulo Freire: La voie/voix collective de l'émancipation. Revue Democratie . MOC: August 2021. Retrieved here: http://www.revue-democratie.be/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1509:paulo-freire-la-voie-voix-collective-de-l-emancipation&catid= 15&Item=148
Who is Paulo Freire?
Paulo Freire was born in Recife, the capital of Pernambuco, northeastern Brazil, on September 19, 1921. With a law degree, he abandoned his initial career to dedicate himself to work with social service and later to develop adult literacy methods – in that At that time, a large part of the Brazilian population was illiterate.
As a result of the 1964 military coup, Freire was arrested and interrogated in Pernambuco. Before presenting himself for another stage of interrogation in Rio de Janeiro, he went into exile at the Bolivian Embassy, from where he left Brazil. About his interrogations, Freire said:
“In most of the interrogations to which I was subjected, what they wanted to demonstrate, in addition to my 'absolute ignorance', was the danger that I represented. I was considered an "international subversive", a "traitor of Christ and the Brazilian people". “Deny, asked one of the interrogators, that your method is similar to that of Stalin, Hitler, Perón and Mussolini! Deny that, with your supposed method, what you wanted was to Bolshevize the country (...)” It was impossible for you to understand something that was sacred to me: a Christian is a man of the world and with the world, so that, committed to the world , exceeds it. It was impossible for him to understand that a Christian intended to defend the people from injustice.” (Excerpt from the book Christians and the liberation of the oppressed, Edições BASE, 1978, Lisbon, p.8-9)
After passing through La Paz, he travels to Chile, where he also works on literacy projects, before leaving that country, the victim of another military coup. Freire spends several years outside of Brazil, during which time he came to teach at Harvard University in the United States and worked for a long time at the World Council of Churches in Geneva.
Freire returns to Brazil in the early 1980s and, in 1989, assumes the position of secretary of education for the city of São Paulo. After a brief period in politics, he returned to his work as an intellectual and educator, to which he devoted himself until his death in 1997.
Freire's thought has recognized and assumed Humano-Christian and Marxist influences. Fray Clarêncio Neotti, former president of UCBC, visited him during his exile in Geneva, in 1973. About the meeting, he described:
“Paulo welcomed me with a Brazilian coffee. Grey-bearded, surrounded by sons and daughters, very kind and concerned. We discuss some problems, we talk about Voices and the future of Brazil. I made him the official invitation for Vozes to be the publisher of his books.
I gave him the messages I had for him. He agreed to write an article for Vozes Magazine on the definition of education. He was afraid, because he is surrounded by police officers everywhere. We talked about the strength that dictatorships have to keep spies in all countries. A month ago, the Brazilian government even asked the Free University of London to give up giving him an honorary doctorate. Paulo Freire is today, together with Dom Hélder, the best-known Brazilian in Europe. He is studied in all universities as a great original pedagogue. All his books are translated into 15 languages. The last one could not be published in Brazil: Pedagogy of the oppressed. You are now writing your own experience and doing a self-analysis. Paulo Freire impresses. He is convinced of Marxism. He is convinced of Christianity. "I know who to worship," he told me earnestly. And that reminded me of the apostle Paul: "I know whom I have believed." (excerpt from the book Ribeirão Grande, vol, I, p.346-347)
Paulo Freire is one of the most influential Brazilian and Latin American intellectuals of the 20th century. His work has achieved a significant global impact, with leadership positions in international rankings and recognition. There are research centers named after him in Finland, South Africa, Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada. Among Brazilians, it has the largest number of Doctor Honoris Causa degrees: at least 35 degrees between universities in Brazil and abroad (including: Geneva, Bologna, Stockholm, Massachusetts, Illinois and Lisbon). He is the patron saint of education in Brazil and a bust has just been placed in the University of Cambridge, England, as a symbol of tolerance and dialogue in times of culture wars (see: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news /education-59406106 ).
* Communicator (Brazil). Doctor in Political and Social Sciences from the Catholic University of Louvain (Belgium). Communication and Participation Researcher at Loughborough University London, UK
Translation into Spanish of SIGNIS ALC. The original Portuguese version is available here .
The illustration is part of a collection of caricatures and drawings specially created by independent graphic artists and members of GRAFAR/RS to commemorate the 100 years of educator Paulo Freire, on September 19, 2021. Among the artists who produced and donated their art are they find Alisson Affonso, Aline Daka, Amaro Abreu, Bier, Edgar Vasques, Fabiane, Latuff. Leandro Bierhals, Natalia Forcat, Santiago, Schröder and Vecente. The production is by Cris Pozzobon.
More information and purchases: freireandopoa@gmail.com / cafecompaulofreire@gmail.com
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