You don’t want a “deadlihood” - you want an “alivelihood”. In Gandhi’s spirit of swaraj, here’s a new approach to education and work from India
See under heading “Four circles of Alivelihoods” below
We have often been alerted to the principles of swaraj - Gandhi’s profound philosophy of community self-determination - by the tech visionary Vinay Gupta (see tweets). It would seem that this Alivehoods movement, as articulated in this article, is maintainaing the swaraj spirit into the the India of the early 21st century. Extract below:
…The journey to finding one’s Alivelihood can be seen as essentially a spiritual-material one, where the work that we do is nothing less than a form of worship (in the best of the Gandhian tradition). It is not simply a means to making money or a skill-training program.
‘Alivelihoods’ represents a conscious movement towards caring for the greater good and a regenerative culture, far beyond the narrow consumerist mindset of building one’s own bank balance, and satisfying individualist egos’ needs.
‘Alivelihoods’ are careers where our soul comes alive and our sense of Self is expanded, as we unlearn and up-learn, to work with our heads, hearts, hands and homes. These are careers that benefit not only us but also the local communities and the natural ecosystems that we live in. These careers replenish and restore our sacred covenant with the rest of nature, rather than exploit and pollute.
What is the difference between ‘Deadlihoods’ and ‘Alivelihoods’?
A ‘Deadlihood’ is any work that is soulsucking, violent, exploitative and separate from our spiritual life. It prioritizes hyperindividualism and greed. It promotes, finances, subsidizes, incentivizes and protects extraction of natural resources, war and waste. It centralizes power in the hands of a few.
The global economic system has been working on the limitless growth model for decades now. It has no regard for our community life, commons and natural ecosystems. Wealth has been defined as the hoarding and accumulation of money, leading to excessive competition, loneliness, waste, violence and disparity.
The accounting and legal systems are designed to hide this. Most of the jobs that the mainstream schools and universities prepare and train us for are Deadlihoods, as they seek to convert us into homo economicus (economic slaves).
On the other hand, ‘Alivelihoods’ build on and re-contextualize the Gandhian concept of Constructive Work. These involve work that brings us joy and involves the regeneration of natural ecosystems, where the focus is on spiritual inner growth, social trust bonds, good health and local natural resources.
Real wealth gives us a sense of abundance rather than a feeling of scarcity. Alivelihoods are built on the paradox of having less giving one more happiness. It has been expressed by social movements such as Gross National Happiness, Buen Vivir, Decluttering, Degrowth, Localization and Voluntary Simplicity.
How do Alivelihoods look on the ground?
In Swaraj University and the Ecoversities Alliance, we have been exposing khojilearners to people working in Alivelihood careers over the past decade.
We have identified more than 50 Alivelihoods. These range from creative therapists and natural healers, organic farmers, nature conservationists, natural fashion designers, slow impact investing, healthy chefs, community-building facilitators and eco-architects.
The focus is on healing, reimagination, localization, conservation, traditional knowledge, seva, regeneration and transformation of existing systems.
There are many growing examples of people who have walked out of mainstream careers (in IT, for example) to pursue Alivelihoods. Alivelihoods is not their side charity work. They are able…to earn their living and take care of their families with what they earn through their Alivelihoods career.
Pursuing one’s Alivelihood is not some romantic notion or non-achievable fantasy. It is very much a reality, as seen by many pioneers who have taken up numerous and beneficial Alivelihoods as their careers.
One such prominent example is Rohit Jain of Banyan Roots, who works on organic products. Rohit visited a village where he came across its kids who knew a lot about organic farming. From there on, he was inspired to start his social entrepreneurial venture and hasn’t looked back since. He is now trying to work with tribal farmers to convert an entire district in Rajasthan to organic and natural farming.
Another example is eco-fashion designer Namrata Manot, who works with natural dyes and sustainable clothing as her Alivelihood. In her company Biome, she aims to produce clothing that is friendly to the skin and health, as well as to the environment. She is, thus, creating a sustainable clothing brand, whilst following her passion.
Four circles of Alivelihoods [See graphics above]
It is important to note that Alivelihoods are not the same as green jobs, social entrepreneurship or the Sustainable Development Goals. These are essentially add-ons to the status quo system. Alivelihoods seek to examine the roots of the crises, rather than just the symptoms. It encourages us to ask deeper questions about the global system and institutions. The four primary circles of Alivehoods are as follows.
Sense of Purpose: This is work that brings us joy, passion and meaning. It gives our life meaning, while giving back to the communities and physical places we come from. A large majority of the people who work a 9 to 5 job hate their jobs. We keep taking on more debt to find more happiness. We are living in an environment where accumulating more debt has become the norm. Debt is one way the system uses to trap us. It is time to change that to truly seek what makes our hearts sing.
Regenerating Real Wealth: Alivelihoods involves work that replenishes various forms of real wealth, such as health, social capital, nature and local knowledge. It is work that goes beyond measuring success and impact based on the typical financial pay packages and GNP. It is work that takes us beyond our fears and scarcity, by revaluing and rebuilding a collective field of trust, dignity and a sense of real inner fulfillment.
It is from this place of creative abundance that we can start to imagine and make different choices for ourselves and our planet. As American biologist Robin Wall Kimmerer says, “Wealth among traditional people is measured by having enough to give away.”
A Shift in Power: Alivelihoods constitute work that focuses on benefiting communities rather than mega-corporations. The growing economic wealth and power of mega-corporations, from airlines to pharmaceuticals to high-tech companies, have raised concerns about too much concentration of power in the hands of decision-makers who are not accountable to the public.
For decades we have focused on work that makes the rich richer, hence increasing the disparity we see around us. The disparity in our country is astounding. Alivelihoods support more grassroots multi-partisan forms of political organizing and local investments. These also restore decision-making power to the local communities.
Changing the Game: Alivelihoods involve work that shifts our worldview towards regeneration, restoration and interconnectedness. These make us question narratives such as competition, survival of the fittest, nationalism, hyper-individualism, retail therapy, and the god of money. This involves reconnecting to ancient wisdom traditions that promote deep connection with the rest of nature and invoke the understanding that, “What we do to nature, we do to ourselves.”
What learning and preparing for Alivelihoods looks like
Most available career guidance and counselling processes are all geared towards Deadlihoods careers. There are some good online resources for youth to explore basic career questions and to know that they don’t have to get stuck in a cookiecutter Deadlihood.
In India, for example, organizations like Alohomora and GnaanU provide career exploration videos for youth, so that they start reflecting more on career choices vis-a-vis their gifts and talents. These initiatives are especially geared toward youth from marginalized populations. They are key in gaining traction from a consumerist job to a more meaningful vocation that serves personal and societal well-being.
There still needs to be more opportunities for both learning journeys and apprenticeship learning, where learners can actually go and find out what the work is actually like, and why individual Alivelihoods leaders are driven and deeply committed to the work that they do…
To go deeper into Alivelihoods, educators can start by asking more fundamental questions around many of the basic things we use and the systems that are around us. Questions like where does my food and water come from, or where does my clothing come from, or where do the materials to build my house come from, or where does my waste or my faecal matter actually go?
Most ‘educated’ young people (and their parents and teachers) do not have any idea where these things actually come from, how are they made, and what is behind them. As our friend Jinan often says, “Children nowadays grow up seeing final products; they no longer see the processes behind these.”
We have been totally disconnected by the modern education system from these basic questions of life. Ironically, a so-called illiterate person would have much more answers to these questions, than a so-called educated urban person.
In Swaraj University, we often start this conversation by sharing a powerful YouTube video called the Story of Stuff. We also pick up random everyday products such as a pen or a plastic bag and ask learners to imagine and describe the entire lifecycle of these products, i.e., how were they ‘born’ and where do they go when they ‘die’?
Another area for educators to explore for Alivelihoods is, how do we learn to re-connect to, and fall in love with, our local places? We are taught about the Eiffel Tower, the Taj Mahal, New York City, and so many places far far away. But we aren’t encouraged to learn much about our local neighborhoods, local stories or local sacred sites.
If we do not know them, how and why will we ever bother to conserve or take care of them? Much of this can only be accessed through knowing local languages.
When learners come to the Swaraj University campus, each of them, as part of their learning program, is invited to adopt a tree, water body or a mountain spot. Over the course of the program, they keep revisiting and speaking and listening to this being.
This helps learners connect to the place in a very different, slower, more sacred way. It also reminds us that we are not the only intelligent beings on the planet. Such pedagogies stimulate a curiosity to know more about a local place.
The modern education system has locked us into wanting to interact with only people of our own age. Peer group culture, which is very powerful, can have lots of supports for our learning in very deep ways.
But intergenerational learning is being ignored quite a bit. Schooling does not encourage us to talk to elderly people, grandparents, neighbors, local artisans and farmers, or listen to their wisdom and their perspectives, as it oftentimes labels them as ‘uneducated’. But these people have a lot of stories and experiences to share about local places, how they are changing, and the challenges facing them.
And then obviously, we need more focus on design thinking and local entrepreneurship from early on. The whole focus of education a generation earlier was that you study well, you get a degree, then a job, and then retire. But that’s not the case anymore. And so, we need more spaces for people to design their own products or solutions, to creatively learn how to make things with their hands, and build their own local markets around it. Design for Change, Project DEFY and Creativity Adda are good examples of this at the school level.
At Swaraj University, we do two things. Learners are invited to prototype small products and explore how to make money from these. With each of them, they ask, “How does this serve the people, place and profit – the triple bottom line?” And then we have a lot of projects to explore gift culture, which are interventions in building a culture of kindness, compassion, collaboration, care and trust.
There is a more fundamental design problem with modern education, which also needs to be addressed. We have an education system that is built on extrinsic motivation. We haven’t created the time and space for young people to organically figure out and connect with their own intrinsic motivations. This is one of the main factors for the mental health crisis and drug-escapism epidemic.
In Swaraj University, learners are invited to explore what inspires them, what makes them sad, what makes them angry and how do these connect with the big challenges of our times. Based on these, they design and build projects in real time, without any externally imposed rewards, punishments or deadlines.
Importantly, they have ample time to explore and experiment, and find their own gurus. Experiencing the world is given more value and importance, than just reading textbooks about it and getting marks. And we encourage the learners to operate outside of the conventional disciplinary boundaries.
We have set up cohorts of learners with cross-disciplinary backgrounds. This helps in deep peer-to-peer learning. Somebody is looking deeply into water or native species forestry or eco-architecture or solar energy or community theatre, and they are all together. This creates very exciting kinds of cross-pollination learning possibilities when you are able to bring people of different interest areas together.
In contrast, our current education system keeps people of certain disciplinary categories bounded in echo chambers. In addition to building more holistic understanding of life and Alivelihoods, we are also creating an opportunity for them to be expansive parts of each other’s journeys and support each other’s projects as well. Learning to collaborate and work as a team is critical.
The inner resilience of young people is another important area which schools and learning centers need to become open to. Often when one is doing something, there are failures and mistakes involved. How do we use these as essential parts of our learning process, rather than hiding, or feeling guilty or shameful about them?
We need to make it a point to take time to celebrate and reflect our ‘failures’ and ‘mistakes.’
These are some of the fundamental shifts in values that are needed in modern education, if we are to nurture more young people towards Alivelihoods…