ThirdKnowledgeLab
From KnowledgeLab
Who Cares?
An open weekend gathering for people concerned about themselves, each other and the world we live in.
June 30 - July 2, 2006.
Institute for Advanced Studies, Lancaster University, North West England.
THE KNOWLEDGELAB IS NOW OVER - THANKS TO EVERY ONE WHO MADE IT WHAT IT WAS.
If you want to leave any comments or reflections please click here.
Adopt a session during the weekend
Contents |
Intro
You are happily invited to the third Knowledge Lab, following on from two successful and friendly anticapitalist gatherings: “Making Global Civil Society” (November 05) and "(Hack the Knowledge Lab: Technology, Creativity, Social Organisation" (February 06). Like the past two, Who Cares? is hosted at and with the support of the Institute for Advanced Studies (IAS) at Lancaster University.
This page offers a basic structure/content for the upcoming (third) knowledgelab in June/July - An open weekend gathering for people concerned about themselves, each other and the world we live in.
The planning and organisation of this event is now happening both on this wiki and on a mailing list, which we encourage you to subscribe to: http://lists.aktivix.org/mailman/listinfo/knowledgelab See the archives for prior postings.
The mailing list grew out of the first KnowledgeLab weekend in November. During that weekend, it was strongly felt that we should be more experimental with the general format of the upcoming "Hacklab", at the very least radically reduce the number of presentations, and lengthen the discussion time available for each topic. Following the exploration of these changes, Who Cares? will focus on a small number of sessions allowing for in-depth exploration of challenging topics.
Form/Structure
Continuing the experimental Knowledge Lab project, this weekend will be a conference without presentations or key note speeches. The aim is to bring together a variety of people - waged and unwaged thinkers, students, activists, care workers- from all over the world for intense discussion sessions, play time and experiential learning.
FRIDAY:
general welcome & introduction; introduction to the programme; discussion of how to make the weekend as safe as possible for everyone; fun & games & getting to know each other
SATURDAY & SUNDAY:
both days will be divided into 4 STREAMS taking place in 4 different rooms, plus a 1/2 stream (the KidzStream!) taking place in the soft-seated corner of the foyer. Everyone is encouraged to take responsibility for the 1/2 stream, even if only for a little while!
All streams share the same lunch and dinner breaks, but are otherwise NOT time-bound to one another.
STREAM 1: EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING (group work, exercises and practices)
STREAM 2: DEEP DISCUSSIONS (gets intellectual here)
STREAM 3: CARE IN PRACTICE (DIY health and more)
STREAM 4: CHILL OUT (comfy room for relaxing were a bit of quiet time)
Apart from the chill out a room, each stream consists of a number of sessions of either facilitated discussions on a particular subject or group exercises on a particular subject (see below for some proposals). Sessions are long-ish (up to 3 hours) around a set of questions, issues or statements (to be circulated in advance, maybe incl. a series of useful texts to be read prior). There will be no formal presentations, but the idea is that people with particular experience/knowledge of the given subject will aim to ensure vibrancy of discussion and relevance of information imparted - without extinguishing other people's points of views and contributions!
The idea is for each session to collectively draft some sort of "output" - this could be a simple list of main points summarising the discussion, but could of course be more creative (such as editing audio recordings for publication online), and would ideally also identify further questions regarding the subject (rather than attempt to provide answers) with a view to encourage further thought and action, maybe even spawn writings, research, or other projects. The "output" will be "publicised" on the wiki and ideally on posters or similar during the course of the weekend.
There will be a plenary/feedback session Sunday lunchtime to wrap up the whole event.
Involvements & Skill sharing
Anybody is welcome to attend the weekend, get involved in the discussions, and take part in the workshops. HOWEVER, YOU NEED TO REGISTER TO ATTEND AS THE EVENT IS LIMITED TO 100 PEOPLE, SO PLEASE GET IN TOUCH NOW: elham.kashefi AT ntlworld.com.
If you'd like to take a more pro-active role during the conference, you might want to ADOPT a session - that is, prepare it in advance (suggest questions, main issues, reading material etc and propose the length of the session), arrive prepared for discussion themselves, attend it, and participate passionately in the debates and in the drafting of the "output". For proposed sessions see Lab3Programme. For a little more on what it means to adopt a session see AdoptingSessions.
We also still need people to FACILITATE sessions - ideally a session should NOT be adopted and facilitated by the same person(s). Facilitators are usually best if experienced in their task, and will be called upon to facilitate not only discussion, but also the drafting of the "output".
Any which way, please get in touch.
Costs & Practicalities
Unwaged persons: free
Unfunded students/low-paid persons: donation
Funded students/Lancaster university staff: £20
Academics/high waged persons: £65
This contribution is for the whole weekend and includes Friday and Saturday dinner, Saturday and Sunday breakfast and lunch. All food will be vegan and predominantly organic.
Shared accommodation is available on the floor of the very spacious and friendly Quakers' Meeting House, it is free, but please bring sleeping bag and mat. Get in touch if you have any special requirements, and again, please let us know in advance if you're bringing a child.
