I presented my paper, To Know Is Not Important: an exploration of knowledge and equality, at the 2012 Annual Meeting of the American Education Research Association. The paper was submitted to the Ivan Illich SIG, in response to their call for proposal that explored the conferences theme, “To Know is Not Enough.”

The session was called, Not Knowing and the Politics of Powerlessness in Empire. The two other papers were good. I especially liked Mike Hayes‘ idea of “generation” (via Hardt & Negri) as opposed to participation in his talk, “The Deschooled citizen: Educating the Citizen of Empire.” While he wasn’t talking about the internet and “participatory culture.” I think it is relevant.

Overall, the Illich SIG attracts an interesting group of scholars, and the round table, with about 16 people, included snacks, inspired a spontaneous poem, and had cupcake artwork.

I was very happy that friends Liz de Freitas, Robbie McClintock, and Devayani Tirthali came to hear the paper. Without further ado, here’s the title abstract and link to full paper:

To Know Is Not Important: an exploration of knowledge and equality

This paper questions the idea that knowledge is central to our understanding of learning and education. In particular it investigates the “knowledge is power” paradigm that underlies both neoliberal education reform and critical pedagogy. Ivan Illich and Jacques Rancière offer a counter narrative, where ignorance, not knowledge is power. Power, from this view, cannot be packaged as knowledge, but is evident in horizontal, convivial, democratic relationships.

Read the full paper at http://matt.curinga.com/static/papers/knowledge-equality.html