Here we describe what we mean by formación, why we choose this Spanish word, and what the central significance is, of formación, in moving from 'economics' to organising.
Formación is a term adopted from the use that radical economist and coop innovator, Robin Murray, used to make of it. It refers to training and education, but in a sense that also generates a cadre of mutually affiliated actors with a common commitment and orientation, and a capacity to execute that intention and mutually support and anticvipate one another, under their own discretion, autonomously. Historically, formación arises in contexts like the church, the army, administrative elites. Robin Murray
In the context of making a living economy, engaging in formación underpins the principle that what is needed are activist **formations**, capable of embodying and enacting a radical intention, capable in the field, and carrying a commitment to common actions and outcomes.
The essential focus of foprop, as a framing of practice for making a living economy, is formación: - An ecology of practices of skilful *making of activist formations* . . - which have the practical capability to *make radically alternative, working ‘chunks’* of forces of production . . - . . that is, a weave of practices that *prefiguratively constitute* a living economy (meaning, that they are under radically altered relations of production; and thus under relations of dual power in relation to the practices of the dominant economy).
You’ll note that the three nested elements in this framing of ‘formaciòn’ all have the form: ‘the production of x’. That is, we’re working here in a politics of production. A politics of production
The nature of the material being engaged (and thus the nature and the ‘dance’ of the labour power required to engage it) differs within each layer of the scheme: - making (and sustaining) capable activist formations. This is work of zone¿3 in the foprop frame Zone ¿3 - We (formación work) - making (and sustaining) working chunks of 'real economy'. This is work of Zone ¿2 - Here (subsistence work) - making (and sustaining) a radically changed, alive regime of practical relations. This is work of Zone ¿1 - In-here (care work) and Zone ¿4 - Region (stewarding work)
# Not English Formacion is a Spanish word, with similar terms with similar meanings in French and Italian.
In one of very few written references, in 2013 Robin noted:
> *Formation*, the term used in romance languages for education and training, is wider and more inclusive than the English. Formation involves the development of character and outlook (like the German *bildung*) as well as skills. Both the military and the church recognize the centrality of such formation for the development of organisations that necessarily have to *devolve measures of autonomy* to the front line . . \[T]he priest Arizmendiarrieta placed primary emphasis in the establishment and growth of Mondragon on *formaciòn* . . a tradition that has *resisted the split between culture and technique* . . Other successful social economic projects have developed schools, academies, universities and training colleges at their core . . Those that have not done so – and here the fair trade movement stands out . . have been weakened . . . \[9, my italics]
> \[Murray 2013, *Strengthening alternatives systems through the diffusion of innovation*, podcast script, BALTA webinar.] A copy is here pdf 
Formacion also appears in the 2009 methods handbook, *Social venturing* as *Method 20: Formation - Developing skills and cultures*:
> Formation . . indicates both personal development (new knowledge, experience and a broadening and deepening of skills) and the development of a shared culture. \[I]t . . provides a way for everyone . . to develop a shared and articulated aesthetic . . \[F]ormation plays the integrating role that self-interest plays in utilitarian market theory. It gives to the venture a living, reflexive power that is not limited to particular individuals or levels in the organisation but to all those involved. \[148-151]
> \[Murray, Mulgan & Caulier-Grice 2009, *Social venturing*, The Young Foundation and Nesta]. Original download is now unavailable, a copy is here pdf
# Formations are central
We’ll use the Spanish *formaciòn* to avoid confusion with the another key term, ‘formations’. I adopt *formations* from Raymond Williams’ cultural materialist lexicon: \[ Raymond Williams 1981] to refer to consciously organised movements and communities that have distinctive cultural identifications and modes in relation to the status quo, perhaps radical, perhaps conservative.
# Scope is pivotal In an obvious way, formaciòn (as education and learning) bears upon scope, and it's important to develop this, since scope is an issue Robin Murray kept returning to. He regarded economies of scale - and also, I think, *organisation at scale* (as in mass parties for example, or national parliaments, or corporations) - as phenomena of Fordism (or as we might also say in cultural terms, high modernism) and was concerned to cultivate alternative metaphors of *scope* that accounted for post-Fordist realities and (as for example in *Danger and opportunity - Crisis and the new social economy* Murray 2009 DaO) possibilities: > We need a different set of concepts to think about the expansion of alternative economic initiatives to those of scaling. Until now I have thought about it in terms of the idea of diffusion . . . Neither scaling or diffusion really fit. Are there other possibilities: propagation, dissemination, spreading, accumulation? . . . evolution. This has some parallels to biological evolution but is a human and therefore an intentional process. \[ Robin Murray 2013, *Strengthening alternatives systems through the diffusion of innovation*, Podcast]
Typically, Robin repeatedly tried to approach this through organic, ecological or evolutionary metaphors - seeds, DNA, strawberry plants, ‘intentional ecology’ - we might also add, mycelia. Clearly, an approach through formaciòn is a way of producing a different kind of organisation (organic or mycelial, rather than mechanistic, say).
But we can say that this runs deeper: that the practice of formaciòn *is* per se the means to generate scope.
In his brief references to formaciòn, Robin identified it with >measures of autonomy living reflexive power broadening and deepening skills a shared and articulated aesthetic a mutualised capacity for performance and recognition.
In these terms, formaciòn is itself the practice of producing the dance of scope, and the capacity for the dance. Formaciòn is not then just a means to activist capability, but is itself, *as a distinctive, aware, skilful field of practice*, what constitutes living movement, pulse, perception and aesthetic, of a living economy.
We can say then, that Robin was sitting on the answer to his ‘organic’ scope question, the whole time: his practice of formaciòn. Rather than a metaphor - a piece of language, some organic imagery - ‘the answer’ (the *materialist* answer) to the question of scope is *a practice*: formación.
# Regenerative activism > to be added xxx
--- Next: A politics of production