Ravi Shekhar

is a member of the Vidya Ashram collective. Vidya Ashram (Vidya = Knowledge, Ashram = Place for learning, reflection and dialogue) is an autonomous collective. The Ashram is a political space for organizing and for reflection. It works mainly with ordinary working people (peasants, artisans, small producers and retailers, women and indigenous peoples) and their organizations, participating in their existing struggles for livelihoods, against displacement and so on, whilst emphasizing lokavidya, meaning people’s knowledge, knowledge in society, that is, the knowledge and perspective of those who have not gone to the University. The lokavidya perspective has emerged out of roughly three decades of work with the peasant movement, women’s organizations and with academics engaged in critically examining science and technology traditions. The Ashram collective believes that a radical intervention in the world of knowledge is a necessary condition for a radical transformation of society. The Ashram attempts to represent the politics of lokavidya in international fora also, such as the World Social Forum and the Edu-Factory. The Ashram works towards building a knowledge movement that resides in the existing mass movements of the working people. It has in November 2011 launched a people’s knowledge movement called Lokavidya Jan Andolan; www.vidyaashram.org.