Decolonizing Service Learning
August 7, 2020
- In this workshop, the presenters situate the practice of service-learning in higher education within what Anibal Quijano calls “the coloniality of power.” The coloniality of power refers to social and economic structures of power and control constitutive of modern, liberal societies. What then shifts in how we might understand and craft experiential learning when actively troubling existing service narratives? How can this positively alter our praxis? Service-learning must be investigated through its various power structures: the structure of professor and student, academic institutions and the communities in which they are located, urban and suburban, and the binary of the intellectual and “native”. Rather than abandon community-based learning and service learning, they envision possibilities for decolonizing service learning. Here are some follow-up resources from the discussion:
- Recording of the workshop: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_QbvYc-J7I&t=4s
- Decolonizing Service Learning FINAL presentation slides
