Nai Talim Today: Gandhi’s Critique of Industrialism and An Education for Swaraj

The children of today inhabit the planet when CO2 levels have exceeded 400 parts per million (ppm). Crucial planetary boundaries are breached, and the climate crisis has manifested itself menacingly along with several accompanying civilizational crises be it health, socio-economic, political or humanitarian. It is, according to us, the crisis of Industrialism. At this crucial juncture of converging planet-scale disasters where the very survival of humanity is at severe risk, we explore fresh insights into alternative imaginations that can foster a new world where we not just survive but flourish. One such alternative imagination of a good society is that by Gandhi. A century ago, he outlined this vision as Swaraj and, over the years, fleshed out this vision. It is for this Swaraj that in 1937, Gandhi, conceptualizing his educational ideas, initiated a programme known as Nai Talim. Swaraj was diametrically opposite to Industrialism. And, therefore, Nai Talim was in sharp contrast to the state-approved school education that promoted Industrialism. In this article, we give a brief outline of Swaraj; highlight the interconnections between Swaraj and Nai Talim; and expand on ways in which one can reimagine Gandhi’s Nai Talim for contemporary times. We also argue that such an imagination of reinvented Nai Talim is possible today in Indigenous communities, where there is a spirited resistance to industrialism. And as an example, we look at the ongoing experiment of the Zapatistas of Chiapas, Mexico.

Building Bridges: A Conversation between Friends, about Language, Laziness, and Long-distance Running

This conversation took place in a shared Google Doc over several occasions in April and early May 2021, between friends and colleagues, artists and writers, Hannah Clarkson and Matilda Tucker, in the context of an ongoing experiment in collaborative writing. In their individual and collective practices, Clarkson and Tucker explore potential embodiments in language(s) of thinking and dwelling in the ‘here and elsewhere’ of places and spaces they may not physically be in, across cultural, geographical and/or emotional distance. They are interested in how language can be employed as a tool for empathy beyond concrete linguistic understanding; how translation as method opens up to modalities of fictioning and collective storytelling; and writing as an experiment in sharing everyday struggles and building collective narratives of care. An attempt to bridge gaps between the here and elsewhere of Stockholm, Berlin and all the other places that in this time of pandemic we cannot be, the text below is not a conclusion but a conversation. It is a thinking out loud - or rather, on screen - together, on themes of language and translation; belonging and resisting; work and laziness; former and formless selves.

1. An Overview

The European Union represents a remarkable, ongoing experiment in the collective governance of a multinational continent of nearly 450 million citizens and 27 member states. The key aim of this volume is to understand the processes that produce EU policies: that is, the decisions (or non-decisions) by EU public authorities facing choices between alternative courses of public action. We do not advance any single theory of EU policy-making, although we do draw extensively on theories of European integration, international cooperation, comparative politics, and contemporary governance; and we identify five ‘policy modes’ operating across the 15 case study chapters in the volume. This chapter introduces the volume by summarizing our collective approach to understanding policy-making in the EU, identifying the significant developments that have impacted EU policy-making since the seventh edition of this volume, and previewing the case studies and their central findings.

The 1970 United States computer chess championship: The start of the longest-running experiment in computer science history

On August 31, 1970, an experiment began that continues to this day. The first chess tournament for computers was held as part of the Association for Computing Machinery’s (ACM’s) National Conference. The interest generated was tremendous, leading to ACM sponsoring an annual event until 1994. Chess competitions continue to this day, allowing for 50 years of data on the growth of artificial intelligence capabilities in this domain. During this period, program ratings have soared from roughly 1400 in 1970 to over 3500 today. The 1970 event was the first continuous competition in computer science history, and it represents the longest ongoing experiment in computing history.11 Some paragraphs of the text have been taken from Man vs. Machine: Challenging Human Supremacy at Chess by Karsten Müller and Jonathan Schaeffer [2018].

Massive and Microscopic Sensemaking During COVID-19 Times

How does this pandemic moment help us to think about the relationships between self and other, or between humans and the planet? How are people making sense of COVID-19 in their everyday lives, both as a local and intimate occurrence with microscopic properties, and a planetary-scale event with potentially massive outcomes? In this paper we describe our approach to a large-scale, still-ongoing experiment involving more than 150 people from 26 countries. Grounded in autoethnography practice and critical pedagogy, we offered 21 days of self guided prompts to for us and the other participants to explore their own lived experience. Our project illustrates the power of applying a feminist perspective and an ethic of care to engage in open ended collaboration during times of globally-felt trauma.

The Postconflict Interregnum

This chapter delves into the country's ongoing experiment with transitional justice, illustrating the messy renegotiations of rule the postconflict entails. Indeed, the postconflict conjuncture has become the latest springboard for Colombia's frontier state formations. Throughout the country's purportedly stateless frontiers, which continue to be major sites of organized violence and a still-raging war on drugs, the forces of law and order have not so much trumped the power of violent outlaw groups as become fused with them. The chapter explores these antinomies of postconflict statecraft through an ethnographic account of land restitution in Tulapas. This small region demonstrates how the contradictions of postconflict state formation have materialized sharply around the politics of community. It is at the scale of community that the postconflict's intense yet often hushed renegotiations of rule are taking place.

The effect of pH on rates of reaction and hydrogen generation during serpentinization

A series of three laboratory experiments were conducted to investigate how pH affects reaction pathways and rates during serpentinization. Two experiments were conducted under strongly alkaline conditions using olivine as reactant at 200 and 230°C, and the results were compared with previous studies performed using the same reactants and methods at more neutral pH. For both experiments, higher pH resulted in more rapid serpentinization of the olivine and generation of larger amounts of H 2 for comparable reaction times. Proportionally greater amounts of Fe were partitioned into brucite and chrysotile and less into magnetite in the experiments conducted at higher pH. In a third experiment, alkaline fluids were injected into an ongoing experiment containing olivine and orthopyroxene to raise the pH from circumneutral to strongly alkaline conditions. Increasing the pH of the olivine-orthopyroxene experiment resulted in an immediate and steep increase in H 2 production, and led to far more extensive reaction of the primary minerals compared to a similar experiment conducted under more neutral conditions. The results suggest that the development of strongly alkaline conditions in actively serpentinizing systems promotes increased rates of reaction and H 2 production, enhancing the flux of H 2 available to support biological activity in these environments. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue ‘Serpentinite in the Earth System’.