Hay Festival Arequipa 2021 – World Affairs

Focussing on the latest book by the French Minister of National Education, Sports and Youth, Jean-Michel Blanquer (École ouverte, Gallimard, Paris, 2021), this event will analyse, based on the work of the philosopher Edgar Morin on crisis and complexity, the lessons that can be drawn from the Covid-19 pandemic with regard to the institutional and pedagogical management of the school and educational system. The mandatory confinement of the population and post-lockdown difficulties have brought about an international debate between those in favour of the “open school”, that is to say, hybrid schooling with some presence at the school together with strict health protocols, and those in favour of the “closed school”, which is only virtual and avoids taking risks or dealing with uncertainty in a critical situation. A change of epistemological, socioeconomic and cultural paradigm is at stake. What is required is a questioning of teaching and education from both new and traditional viewpoints, since the pandemic has brought to light a serious systemic crisis. What we need is a rethinking of what is understood by the digital technological revolution, data mining, artificial intelligence, as well as a consideration of whether schooling is the most important thing for the development of a society, or whether it is an “adjustment variable” or an “ideological flag” that is in danger within our society. In conversation with Nelson Vallejo-Gomez.

Event in Spanish

The scientific evidence clearly indicates that the present rates of greenhouse gas emission and ecosystem destruction will have catastrophic consequences for our environment. Together with the political, diplomatic and economic initiatives, international law has a role to play in the transformation of our relationship with the natural world. It is in this context that, in late 2020, the Stop Ecocide Foundation convened a panel of independent experts for the legal definition of ecocide. Three of these twelves lawyers, Philippe Sands (United Kingdom), Pablo Fajardo (Ecuador) and Rodrigo Lledó (Chile), will talk about the work involved in preparing a practical and effective rendering of the crime of ecocide, and how this, in June 2021, provided the basis for a consensus about a basic text offering a definition of ecocide as an international crime. The inclusion of ecocide in the Statute of Rome would add a new crime to the practice of international law. It may also contribute to a change of awareness, one that points in a new direction in terms of protecting the environment, one with a more collaborative and effective legal framework safeguarding our future together on the planet we share. They will talk to the British Ambassador in Peru, Kate Harrisson.

Simultaneous translation from English to Spanish available

Click here to watch again the English verison of this event.

Few regions of the world have undergone such political upheaval as Latin America in recent times. The continent has been the setting for numerous socio-political protests and movements, in which very different nations have experienced similar discontent and social agitation. It is possible that this is the result of the common colonial-historical background, which has resulted in most cases in very polarized societies, with high levels of poverty and inequality, which have only increased with the health emergency caused by the pandemic. The journalist and writer Martín Caparrós (Argentina), the journalist Moisés Naím (Venezuela), the historian Natalia Sobrevilla (Peru) and the journalist Michael Reid (United Kingdom) will talk to the journalist Jacqueline Fowks (Peru) with the goal of trying to understand and find common ground regarding the complexity of the social processes that are happening on our continent.