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The INA gGmbH
Central points
About us
Thinking and acting, researching and developing interculturally across borders
The Internationale Akademie Berlin für innovative Pädagogik, Psychologie und Ökonomie gGmbH (INA) was founded in 1996 by Prof. em. Dr Jürgen Zimmer, Dr Christa Preissing and other partners at the Freie Universität Berlin. INA carries out development, practical and research projects as well as further education and training programmes. The INA brings together institutions, groups and individuals who have been working successfully in their respective disciplines for many years, but who have also recognised the need to research and teach beyond the boundaries of their own discipline. The INA works nationally and internationally. It endeavours to develop an interdisciplinary discourse between education, psychology and economics. In all areas of INA's work, the question of meaningful interdisciplinary complementarity and co-operation is therefore addressed in theory, practice and training.
Think globally, act locally
BACKGROUND, GOALS, PHILOSOPHY
The INA is an institutional umbrella under which a number of institutes have joined forces.
The institutionalisation of this network in the form of an academy creates a better framework for the development and implementation of the projects of the participating institutions as well as a joint discussion forum. The work of the International Academy is characterised by the crossing of disciplinary and geographical boundaries. The merger into the International Academy Berlin is intended to create better organisational conditions for the development of new initiatives.
It is no coincidence that the structure of the Academy's areas of work is based less on specialist disciplines, nor on project focal points, and more on paradigmatic approaches to reality.
It can be recognised that the dissimilar siblings – pedagogy of the serious case, economy from below and social psychoanalysis – are related to each other: They start from life situations, they do not adapt people to institutions of a pedagogical or therapeutic nature, but rather move in the opposite direction towards these people.
In this respect, the statement by Ivan Illich, critic (1926 – 2002) is true for all areas of the academy: A great deal of learning does not result from instruction. Rather, it is the result of unhindered participation in a relevant environment.
Social psychoanalysis penetrates the modes of action of the economy in its symbolic mediations. At the same time, it describes the framework conditions of a pedagogy whose aim is to capture and develop real living conditions, including their material foundations.
Think globally, act locally. The Academy focuses on the cultural diversity of this world and works interculturally.
