# About Conspiratio

*Conspiratio* is an independent, annual periodical devoted to what Ivan Illich called “research by people”: disciplined inquiry undertaken not primarily for academic careers or professional expertise, but by those seeking to live more thoughtfully, more freely, and with less dependence—in thought and deed—on the market and the state. 

The periodical grew out of a community of friends who knew, worked with, or were deeply influenced by Ivan Illich, and who wished to keep alive not simply his ideas, but his distinctive way of asking questions. Today, “Conspiratio” brings these voices into conversation with a new generation of thinkers, artists, craftspeople, activists, and readers from around the world. Rather than cultivating a school of thought or defending a doctrine, it seeks to nurture the practice of “thinking with” Illich and his friends: engaging contemporary questions through dialogue, historical attention, intellectual hospitality, and the shared work of friendship. Published both as a handcrafted printed edition and as a freely accessible digital archive, each issue extends an open invitation to join that conversation. Though conducted through the medium of the written word, the periodical invokes the hoped-for intimacy of con-spiration[^1].

**Sajay Samuel** is the Editor. **Isabelle Cedotti** is the designer and curator of each issue, both digital and printed. **Neto Leão** and **Samar Farage** collaborate intensively on translations, proofreading, and revisions.
 
The website is maintained through the collaborative work of friends, including  **Franco Augusto**, **Isabelle Cedotti**, and **Neto Leão**.

### Contributors

Contributors to Conspiratio include:

Attilio del Vinco, Babette Babich, Barbara Duden, Barbara Hallensleben, Bernhard Pörksen, Bill Arney, Brother John – Taizé, Carl Mitcham, Carlos Tornel, Christophe Kotanyi, David Cayley, Dean Bavington, Denis Atkinson, Diego Ferraris, Fabio Milana, Giorgio Agamben, Giovanna Morelli, Giovanni Riganelli, Gustavo Esteva, Henry Zhu, Humberto Beck, Javier Sicilia, Jean Robert, Jean-Pierre Dupuy, Joey Mokos, Jose Antonio Ullate, Joshua A. Klein, Kostas Hatzikiriakou, Lapo Chittaro, Leonardo Christopher Eck Glenewinkel, Luis Xavier López-Farjeat, Marianne Gronemeyer, Neto Leão, Nicola Labanca, Nilo Coradini de Freitas, Rebecca Gamez, Reimer Gronemeyer, Renee Uribe, Robert Kugelmann, Sajay Samuel, Samar Farage, Seonaid Abernethy, Siljia Samerski, Silke Kapp, Toby Everett, Valentina Borremans and Wolfgang Palaver.

### ​​Printed edition

Issues of Conspiratio have variously benefited from the creative thought and work of artists/art collectives including: Claudia Paranhos and Carmen Sapede, who hand craft each issue of the periodical, André Barone,  Atelier Piratininga, De Etser Atelier, De Etser Encadernação, Ernesto Bonato, George Gutlich, Isabelle Cedotti, João Paulo Marques, Neto Leão, Ulysses Bôscolo, and Wagner de Santana Silva.

### Who Was Ivan Illich?

Ivan Illich (1926–2002) was one of the twentieth century's most original social critics, historians, and public intellectuals. His books—including “Deschooling Society”, “Tools for Conviviality”, “Energy and Equity”, “Medical Nemesis”, and “Gender”—offered profound critiques of the institutions and assumptions that came to define industrial society. Long before ecological overshoot, professional dependency, and technological domination became widely recognized, Illich exposed how systems created to satisfy human needs could become counterproductive, diminishing people's capacity to learn, care for one another, move freely, and dwell responsibly within the limits of the world.

Yet Illich's work was never merely critical. Throughout his life, he sought to recover the vernacular traditions, moral imagination, and forms of convivial life through which people have long shaped their worlds together without excessive reliance on bureaucracies, markets, or technical systems. He offered neither a programme nor an ideology, but an invitation to cultivate attentiveness, friendship, and historical understanding as conditions for living well. “Conspiratio” follows that invitation. It is not dedicated to preserving Illich as an authority, but to continuing the conversations he began—and that his friends continue—by thinking with them in the face of the questions of our own time.


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[^1]: For more about this concept, we suggest reading "The Cultivation of Conspiracy" an Illich's text of 1998. Available here: https://illich.acerv.us/en:article:1998-conspiracy:index