The aff reifies the binary of hegemony and counterhegemony

In conclusion, I would argue that Antonio Gramsci saw in the education and cultural formation of adults the key toward the transformation of hegemony. Many would use the term “counter-hegemony” here, which I would avoid, given that Gramsci himself did not use it—my sense is that there is the danger that this term posits some kind of a binary opposition regarding “hegemony” and “counterhegemony,” the kind of binary opposition that Gramsci’s conceptualization of the term avoids. The relationship is a dialectical one, involving internal relations between the two, relations that need to be renegotiated within the interstices of the hegemonic structures themselves. The attainment of an “intellectual and moral reform,” which Gramsci regarded as necessary for such a transformation to occur, entailed a lengthy process of education characterized by what Raymond Williams would call the “long revolution.” The process involved education in its many forms, formal, nonformal, and informal. Organic intellectuals engaged in this lengthy process of working for social transformation were to explore a number of sites with the potential to serve as sites of transformative learning. Gramsci was a role model with his constant, indefatigable immersion in projects and his creation of opportunities for adult learning during his years as a political activist/leader and politician and during his imprisonment, especially the time when he awaited his trial on the island of Ustica where he is believed to have left a mark among the islanders. However his major legacies are the various theoretical insights deriving from his own revolutionary praxis, insights that continue to make Gramsci a constant source of reference in political theory. As we have seen, his contribution was not lost on Freire with whom he shared political pedagogical insights and which Freire, like other many leftwing intellectuals and practitioners, took on board in his quest for an educational contribution to “the creation of a world in which it will be easier to love” (Freire, 1970, p. 24; see also Allman et al., 1998).