WRITING FOR SOCIAL CHANGE• ese:o is a NGO that works on

capacity enhancement and development for research through critical thinking, collaborative writing and cooperantion.

• Role of Humanities in challenging the “global gap” in knowledge production and dissemination

• ese:o accumulates over 10 years of research .and receives support from the Ford Foundation to systematize and package its methodology.

• “Essay” in Esperanto

• Sustainable research-action

• Simple new technologies allow for systematic action and local empowerment

• Written communication favors critical thought and impact evaluation

• Contribution to Human Rights and social change from the Humanities

• This graphic visualizes the locations of academic journals listed in Thompson Reuters’ Web of Knowledge.

Source: The Oxford Internet Institute (OII), 2011.

DISTINCT ACADEMIC PUBLISHINC GEOGRAPHIES

This visualisationsegments academicjournals by languageand country and shades each country by the averageimpact factor of thejournals publishedwithin it.Source: OII, 2011.

Source: The Oxford Internet Institute (OII), 2011.

LANGUAGE, GEOGRAPHY AND POWER

First barrier: the preeminence of English

Second barrier: lack of locally-produced knowledge

Third Barrier: Isolation

• Isolation as a silent barrier

• Individuals must participate as writers and readers

• Collaborative writing and use of technology to address multiple forms of isolation

Fourth Barrier: Stigma

• Lack of experience with difference

• Extra linguistic and cognitive effort required to read a paper submitted

• Different code, different style, different references

• Discrimination against other forms of argumentative style

• Other criteria for truth

• an unconscious prejudice

• Confuses a shortage of resources and infrastructure with a lack of the requisite skills and quality

Research shows that …

• Learning academic writing requires time, effort, self-regulation and discipline. It takes 10 years to become an expert on anything. The passage from the stages of novice to competent to expert requires making progress in several areas:

Strategy: planning, emulating models, speaking to an international audience, targeting journals, etc.

Knowledge: of field and discourse (elements of persuasion).

Skills: intellectual and social.

Motivation: confidence, efficacy.

OUR METHODOLOGY

• is conducted online

• using peer editing as a tool

• allows for personal pacing while working in a group of colleagues

• aimed at all kinds of researcher researchers

• includes organization, argumentation, referencing and placing/ preparation for publication

• process of writing and publishing takes from six to nine months

• We work on competences from a political point of view

• Language as medium, place and materiality

• Body as a social and political effect of language

• Language and desire: finding your ownvoice

• Writing as a political tool

• Critique of academic labor structurewithin post-colonial, capitalist and neo-liberal logic of academica in the global south.

THE BASIC STEPS

Coordination – Integrationan integrating voice that lends coherence to the

whole process, coordinating roles of tutors and providing

global perspective

Epistemological strategy centered on argumentation

and disciplinary-specific strategies

Communicationpolitical and communicative

approach focused on effectiveness and visibility

beyound the course environment, vis-a-vis international journals

Language oversees writing and style,

detailed editing focused on clarity and fluidity

Global vision: design of research strategies and learning activities to maximize inclusion of

voices from the South and articulation with global conversations

Roles in methodology

• Online and face to face writing workshops for academic and publishing

• Thesis and dissertation writing coaching

• Collaborative books

• Teaching of strategic reading skills in English and Spanish

• Report writing

• Coordination of capacity-building projects

www.eseo.cl