John Pape, Project Co-ordinator of ILRIG in Cape Town, provides useful practical ideas on how to address globalisation in workers’ education.

Globalisation presents enormous challenges for the labour movement. As a topic for educators, globalisation is no less problematic. Several questions arise when planning a workshop on this topic: What are the goals of your workshop? Where do you start? How do you make the topic relevant to workers’ daily lives without oversimplifying? How do you finish so that participants feel upbeat and not demoralised? What materials do you use? ILRIG has been addressing globalisation in education work for several years. Some of our experiences may be of use to other educators.

What are the goals of your workshop?

ILRIG has two main points which we want participants to understand: that globalisation is not "too complicated" for workers to understand, and that globalisation is an issue of contestation and struggle. It is not a "neutral" or "inevitable" process. We also include these content areas which we see as key to understanding globalisation: globalisation is the result of a crisis in capitalist profitability; globalisation involves a changed role for the state, not the disappearance of the state; globalisation has meant an increased role for finance capital; globalisation is not gender-neutral; and international solidarity is needed to contest globalisation effectively.

Where do you start?

Even with a topic as big and complex as globalisation, we avoid starting with "expert" presentations. As proponents of critical pedagogy, we try to begin with participants’ experiences. There are two ways we approach this. If time is limited, we simply ask the participants for their impressions/reactions to the term "globalisation". In longer workshops, we break into groups and participants discuss the main issues which they confront in their workplaces and communities. They then discuss which issues have changed and which have stayed the same over the past five years.

Our facilitators then record the responses and group them under three major headings: Changes in the Workplace, Restructuring of the International Economy, and Changes in the Role of the State. This helps to link workers’ lived experience with the overall issue of globalisation. These headings then form the framework for the remainder of the workshop.

How do you make the topic relevant to workers’ lives without oversimplifying?

The first part of answering this question relates to finding ways to access and make use of participants’ experience. But globalisation is more than the subjective interpretation of lived experience. It is also necessary to directly engage with the more complex and technical aspects of globalisation.

One approach could be to dazzle participants with statistics on growth of international trade and speculative investment. While interesting and useful, this method tends to overwhelm participants with figures rather than build analytical skills.

Avoiding this trap involves framing our content in the context of debates between the supporters and opponents of globalisation. Although we count ourselves amongst the opponents, our purpose as educators is not to impose our position but to present a range of views. Typically, we begin our presentation on globalisation by asking participants to read short quotes. These come from Renato Ruggiero of the WTO, the ICFTU, Bill Clinton, and South Africa’s largest trade union federation, COSATU. This exercise characterises globalisation as an issue of struggle and contestation.

When presenting the various aspects of globalisation like production, trade, investment, technology, and finances, we address: What has changed? What do the supporters say? What do the opponents say? For example, we talk about how some production processes (e.g. motorcars) now take place through a global division of labour. We then note that supporters characterise this as moving towards a "global factory" where production can be carried out anywhere to enhance efficiency and profits. We would similarly note that opponents argue that a "global factory" is not actually anything like the reality. They point to the continued dominance of Northern-based TNCs in this global production process and the ways in which certain expertise such as Research and Development remains dominated by the North.

By presenting the material in the context of a debate and asking participants to develop their own position, the issues become relevant to workers. Instead of being overwhelmed by investment or trade figures, the hard data becomes secondary to an understanding of the globalisation process.

How do you finish so that participants’ feel upbeat and not demoralised?

This remains the most difficult challenge. One option is to present participants with a list of all the campaigns which are taking place. Such information is useful but often is distant, particularly to worker leaders who are not involved at the national level.

One alternative is a role play. Participants are divided into three groups and each one has to organise a speaker to participate in a "Public Forum of Experts" on how South Africa should respond to globalisation. One group puts forward a speaker to represent the views of the South African Chamber of Business, another group to represent the views of the Government’s Department of Trade and Industry and the last group to represent COSATU.

This approach is not without its faults, but does have two advantages. Firstly, it forces the participants to engage with all the material of the workshop and shape it into a coherent view. Secondly, it gives participants rather than the facilitator, the last word in the workshop. This can end the workshop on an upbeat and empowering tone.

What material to use?

There is a wealth of material but much of it is totally useless for workshop purposes. We have developed our own booklet which we use as the major reading for the course. Often participants read parts of it in groups and report back. We particularly make use of group reading and tasks on some of the more technical topics before we make our own presentations.

Despite the enormity of globalisation as a subject, we must not throw out interactive and participatory methods to "cover everything". With globalisation, as with any topic, participants tend to only understand and use what they work with, not what they simply hear from a facilitator. Moreover, without interactive methods, facilitators deny themselves a most important learning opportunity - learning from the participants.

Nonetheless, interactive methods can present difficulties. Firstly, in setting up globalisation as a topic of debate, there can be an oversimplification of positions. Time may not permit sufficient interrogation of such views. Secondly, our concluding role play runs some other risks. With such a process, the most articulate speaker may gain converts on the basis of oratory skills, not content. This can be a hollow victory if the facilitator or the speaker does not share the point of view which wins the day. We are experimenting with simulation exercises as possible antidotes to this problem.

Education about globalisation is extremely broad and challenging. Time frames limit how much we can achieve. We hope that in both our workshops and in this article we provide a bit of stimulus to continue rising to the challenge of the struggle against globalisation.