Presentation

LUCI : The International Cooperative University

LUCI is :

- an inter-pluri-multi-trans-disciplinary research cooperative in critical public health,

- a research training platform through research (seminars, international doctorates, summer school, study days, international conferences, etc.) ;

- an experimental third place of critical devices for promoting emancipatory health (ephemeral cooperatives, alternative prevention systems, etc.).

THE INTERNATIONAL COOPERATIVE UNIVERSITY (LUCI) was born at the Maison du Peuple in Paraty, Brazil in July 2019 as part of a long cooperation, within an international and European critical public health network aimed at the development of the promotion of emancipatory health. Its head office is located at Campus Condorcet, at 14 cours des Humanités in the North premises since September 2020. Its status as a Cooperative Society of Collective Interest (SCIC) and GIS is in progress.

LUCI relies as much on critical theories and epistemologies of the South as on alternative methodological approaches aimed at social transformations. It favors mechanisms favorable to cooperation (through education, social work, social experiments, research in action, ephemeral cooperatives, etc.).

LUCI falls within the framework of the concept of "One Health", the critique of biopower and humanitarian biopolitics reflected in relations of domination between countries, whether they are epistemological and / or medico-epidemiological.

LUCI brings together knowledges and experiences from different vulnerable territories, in resistance, against extractivist sovereignties (epistemological, ecological, health, humanitarian or educational) ; insofar as, biopolitical configurations are issues of sovereignty and factories of socio-territorial inequalities in health at the global level and at the sub-national level.

LUCI aims to work on the epistemologies of research in the different fields of public health practices of populations, the primary sources of inequalities, through a pluri-inter-multi-trans-disciplinary critical research cooperative and through critical cross-views in an intercultural dialogue with different scientific, artistic, popular and activist languages.

LUCI supports the establishment of ethical, inclusive, transformative and democratic public health policies, favorable to the translation of these languages into emancipatory health promotion practices for all with the populations of vulnerable territories in all their diversity (social, economic, cultural, gender, gender ...)

LUCI takes care to articulate four dimensions of justice : social, environmental, health and cognitive deployed from four areas of knowledge : collective health, political ecology, critical education and approaches from Epistemologies of the South.

LUCI cooperates (according to research and training cooperation) with a large network of universities, laboratories in SHS and critical public health, in France, in Europe and internationally, with a set of NGOs, ’associations and representatives of indigenous communities.

LUCI, since its creation, offers an annualized international doctoral seminar, initiates various study days and conferences. It provides support for cooperative, methodological and conceptual devices through experimental prevention devices co-constructed with students, social movements, populations and academics.

LUCI jointly built with the Doctoral School of Social Sciences of Paris 8 and the CES of Coimbra an international doctorate on Epistemologies of the South with its founding members.

LUCI has held its first international conference from October 25 to 29, 2021 at Campus Condorcet in Aubervilliers. It brought into dialogue the concepts and methods of the Epistemologies of the South. 

List of founding members : LUCI is co-supported by its founding-active members :

- The UMR CNRS LADYSS 7533 Paris 8, (France) https://www.univ-paris8.fr/UMR-7533-Laboratoire-dynamiques-sociales-et-recomposition-des-espaces-LADYSS within the University Paris 8 (France)

- The Center for Social Studies of Coimbra (Portugal) (https://www.ces.uc.pt/en) within the University of Coimbra (Portugal)

- The Iberian Network Epistemologies of the South of the University of Seville https://www.us.es/ (Spain)

- LARTES - IFAN in Dakar (Senegal) http://lartes-ifan.org/ at the University Cheik Anta Diop in Dakar (Senegal)

- The LISRA (France) http://recherche-action.fr/labo-social/ of the MSPH Paris-Nord

- The School Health Education https://www.schoolsforhealth.org/

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