Pedagogical devices in political literacy. A workshop for representatives in a recovered factory in San Luis, Argentina

Abstract

This work narrates a training stage in a recovered factory in San Luis in 2014, where a group of lecturers who work at Universidad Nacional de San Luis participated. The work narrates the launching of a device called Workshop for Disctrict Representatives. This workshop is rebuilt in its three stages: before, during and after. The launching of the device made it clear that there were inner conflicts between the workers regarding the process of recovery of the factory, which caused the interruption of the workshop. The reasons held by the workers to end the workshop opened up the discussion of limitations and potentialities of a pedagogical tool designed to promote political literacy. Chantal Mouffe’s categories were used, and some hypotheses were developed regarding the difficulties to build a collective identity that moved toward the constitution of alternative ways of production and coexistence.