Towards a critical service learning in geography education: exploring challenges and possibilities through testimonio

Abstract

There has been an increasing interest in exploring the transformational possibilities of experiential learning approaches like service learning, across post-secondary education, including geography. At the same time, scholars caution that such initiatives can entrench neoliberalism, white supremacy and other power structures and call for implementing a critical service learning (CSL) approach that is rooted in action against injustice. In response, this paper uses testimonio methodology to explore the experiences of a student and instructor engaging in a graduate geography course that implements CSL. We demonstrate how CSL is a complex process that is mired in the very power structures and institutional barriers it attempts to disrupt. Nonetheless, CSL creates opportunities for social change in the classroom and community, which make it a promising pedagogical strategy for geographers aiming to create alternative teaching approaches in their classrooms.

Keywords:

• Critical service learning
• human geography education
• social justice
• testimonio

Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge the tireless work of Amrita Daniere, our community partners, the dedicated students and the Department of Geography & Planning at the University of Toronto for supporting the Planning for Change: Community Development in Practice course and making this work possible. We would also like to extend our sincere thanks to Fran Rawlings Quintero and MUJER for welcoming this opportunity for partnership and their relentless efforts to end gender-based violence. Lastly, we give thanks to Latin American communities across Ontario for inspiring the stories shared here.

Notes

1. Latinx and Chicanx are gender-neutral terms that refer to people of Latin American descent, and Mexican descent respectively, who identify across a spectrum of gender identities.

2. Papelitos guardados directly translated into Spanish means protected written pieces of paper. It refers to the ways women of colour safeguard their experiences, memories and notions of self that are silenced, but recovered through their telling (Delgado Bernal et al., 2012).

3. The videos are available at http://mujer.ca/home/en/.