As stimulating as the current round of debate has been, we see clear political limits to the potentialities of list discussion. We do not wish to devalue the important contributions to the list on topics such as the links between universities and labour markets, the borders between universities and societies, the transnationalisation of higher education processes, etc. Nor do we want to sideline the many suggestions and proposals, both abstract and concrete, for networking various auto-education initiatives into some wider ‘global’ formation capable over time of offering new political directions. To the contrary, we believe it is necessary to take these proposals beyond list discussion. This is not merely because list cultures have probably passed their heyday and there are many different online possibilities for political connection and relation now available. It is also because the increasingly muddied relations between speech acts, cognitive labour and political actions demand that we piece apart efforts of political organization, gestures of self-publicity (our list discussion has not been free of these) and the demands of free labor. All this occurs in contexts where we cannot forget the affective energies and passions that can both enable and block political experiments and conflicts.

We thus propose to close the list in a couple of days and to move ahead in other ways. Apart from the edu-factory book publication, which we have already mentioned in other posts, we envision the publication of a small free newspaper that can be printed out and distributed by participants in the edu-factory network in their diverse political contexts. We also propose to raise some face to face meetings with edu-factory participants where we can plan further moves to establish a free university on a transnational scale, or a Global Autonomous University (http://p2pfoundation.net/Global_Autonomous_University) to use the words of Vidya Ashram. In fact, we think the urgency in edu-factory now should be for the organization of a face to face meeting. After this we can reopen the list with new paths for discussion.

To begin to organise such transnational autonomous education initiatives we will require funds, legal advice, open source and open access expertise, participants prepared to mobilize existing institutional and political contacts, and so on. We look forward to hearing from all who can help at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it . The edu-factory site (http://www.edu-factory.org) will continue to be updated. For now, our political proposal and decision is to close the list.

Thanks to all,

Edu-factory collective