VIRTUAL: Learning. Life. Work.

Abstract

This paper is a provocation inspired by Tanizaki’s In Praise of Shadows (1933), which offers a framework to examine hybridity in learning, life and work. Casting a long shadow over education, is the term ‘silo’. It is used as a pejorative antithesis of hybridity, of self-imposed disciplinary isolation and intellectual inertia- a curious metaphor given the silo’s efficiency, function, and fitness for purpose. In academia, language, definition, and meaningful interpretation is paramount therefore, this paper reframes silos as metaphoric learning spaces that protect, contain, and celebrate differences. This is not to posit a reinforcing of boundaries or abandonment of interdisciplinarity – quite the opposite. We argue that disciplines are hybrid investigations into focussed lines of enquiry that actively engage with multiple methodologies and approaches. They innovate exploratory methods for the search and research of deeper knowledge towards developing critical skillsets, therefore providing vital platforms for continued curiosity. For hybrid transformation to occur two things are required – freedom, and a celebration of difference. Education is only transformative when those delivering it are free to engage learners in specialisms that disrupt ideas and challenge hierarchies, including the very hierarchies that confer their academic awards. Creativity is increasingly viewed as a luxury rather than essential to learning, life, and work. Specialist programmes that exist to develop criticality, such as Literature, Art, and Philosophy are increasingly vulnerable. Paulo Freire in his transformative 1970 publication The Pedagogy of The Oppressed, wrote that education is the practice of freedom. In 2024, what seems certain, is that freedom should be more important than ever.