A collective recovery of the works of thinkers and activists that emerged out of the constellation of conviviality surrounding Ivan Illich. The initiative has a double purpose: to contribute to the understanding of the critical current condition and to the analysis and debate of the existing options, based on the contributions of Ivan Illich’s circle, and to constitute a complete digital library of his work of general open access. More about this >
As part of the centennial celebration of Ivan Illich, this gathering, centered in Oaxaca, Mexico, proposed an intellectual and political journey that links memory, critical thinking, and collective action. The Acervus project was presented in relation with the books “Conviviality and Political Resistance from Below: Ivan Illich's Legacy in Mexico” and “Subversive Hope and Radical Conviviality: The Life and Work of Gustavo Esteva” and in dialogue with the process of the Global Tapestry of Alternatives.
From September 24 to 27, 2025, the Center for Advanced Studies – Southeast Europe (CAS SEE) hosted a conference on the island of Cres, dedicated to the legacy and critical thought of Ivan Illich. The Acervus project was presented in that event.
In this first public activity we will present the initiative to recover the history, intellectual production and textual, visual and oral memory of the Intercultural Center of Cuernavaca (CIDOC), which existed in the years 1966 and 1976 in Mexico. This mythical institution operated as a sort of “alternative university” and was the origin of reflections and intellectual productions that forever changed education in Latin America and the world.
In early 2020, we began to envision the need for an intergenerational effort to recover the work of Ivan Illich. We thought of “recovering” in a broad sense of the term, not only giving access, but also making intelligible and facilitating the navigation through the complex layers of his thought. Together with Gustavo Esteva and Franco Augusto, we began to outline the idea of providing open access, non-commercial and collaborative access to all of Ivan's work, starting with the original texts. At the beginning we informally called this effort “Illich's Archives”.