Community-University Engagement: From Chasm to Chiasm

Abstract

This paper addresses the problem of the legacy of Western philosophical thought for community-engaged learning. Binaries between subject and object, and between theory and practice, present challenges to developing a coherent vision of the transformative potential of community-engaged learning or service learning. Some Western thinkers, however, have challenged such binaries. This reflective essay draws on phenomenologists Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Emmanuel Levinas, and psychologist Lev Vygotsky respectively to address questions about perception and relationality in community-engaged learning, the ethical dimensions of such learning in marginalized communities, and the role of instructors in structuring connective experiences for students. Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of the body provides a useful counterpoint to binaries between subject and object, self and world. His radical relationality is tempered by Levinas, who reminds us that difference is often marked as disruptive and dangerous, and that ethical relationships require openness to the Other. In complement, Vygotsky’s work inspires us to think more deeply about what a non-binary, dialectical relationship between theory and practice implies for pedagogy, foregrounding the importance of the instructor in such connective, integrative approaches. Together, these writers’ ideas open spaces for a productive dialog about epistemology—for example, with Indigenous writers—and a vision for ethical community-engaged learning for human development and social change.

Notes

Acknowledgements

Thank you to Robyn Taylor-Neu for stimulating discussions about Merleau-Ponty.

Notes

1 Stuart Hall (2007) suggests that the discourse of “the West and the Rest” is an historical and linguistic construction that dichotomizes the world, albeit a construction that has continuing effects related to language of racism and ethnic discrimination across the world. Hall also makes the important point that “the West” has had its own internal differences and “others” (Jews, for example).

2 The downtown eastside has the dubious distinction of being Canada’s poorest census tract.

3 See more about Making Research Accessible at: http://learningexchange.ubc.ca/campus/faculty/research/making-research-accessible-initiative/

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada [435-2012-0301].