International Journal of Engineering, Social Justice, and Peace, 2021
Critical Conversations are held by members of the greater Engineering, Social Justice, and Peace ... more Critical Conversations are held by members of the greater Engineering, Social Justice, and Peace network in the activist tradition of reflecting on our public engagement and collectively discovering ways of deepening our action. The particpants are selected based on their submissions (Expressions of Interest) in response to the Call for Participation in the Critcial Conversations disseminated through the ESJP website (esjp.org). For years, we have gathered in locations immersed in nature. In 2018 and 2019, the gathering took place in Cala Munda, organized by Caroline Baillie and Eric Feinblatt, in the beautiful Catskills mountains in upstate New York in the U.S.A. We want to feel our connection with the land while we engage in critical conversations on the intersection of the engineering field with social justice and peace. Caroline Baillie facilitates these conversations employing forest pedagogy. Through this pedagogy, we open our hearts to the forest for seeking guidance on how o...
International Journal of Engineering, Social Justice, and Peace
In engineering education there is fairly wide recognition of the value of community-based work fo... more In engineering education there is fairly wide recognition of the value of community-based work for student engineers. However, such interactions are often conflicted, spread between the fear that there might be some exploitation of the community for educational purposes, or perceptions of a lack of honest integration and participation by students, within their busy educational term-sessions. How can we, as academics, play a role in developing more progressive university and community connections, with greater intention in the role that students and universities play? In this shared conversation, four academics and a student participate in an online conversation over several months, developing a discourse that explores, and rather than proposing, and remains open to further exploration.
Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement, 2016
This article reports on a project focused on understanding the work of the Knowledge Co-op (KC) a... more This article reports on a project focused on understanding the work of the Knowledge Co-op (KC) at the University of Cape Town in terms of community engagement and partnership building. The project tested tools for analyzing complex university–community interactions, or “boundary work.” Rather than analyzing the actual partnerships and research itself, activity theory was used as a framework for understanding the role of the KC broker, a key role in university–community partnership work. The activity theory lens assisted in identifying the complex work entailed in the broker role. In particular, the authors argue that in order to understand what happens at the university–community nexus, the unit of analysis needs to shift from individualized practices toward the transaction/boundary zone where these interactions take place.
International Journal of Engineering, Social Justice, and Peace, 2021
Globally, higher education is at a crossroads on so many levels: funding, course development, who... more Globally, higher education is at a crossroads on so many levels: funding, course development, who our students are, what knowledge is relevant for the world of work and beyond, what kinds of students do we want to graduate, and who are we as educators. All these questions (and more) have been around for some time; the current COVID-19 context however brings them even more sharply to the fore. This paper responds to the prompt about how we train professionals for the future so that they don’t participate in systems of oppression and inequality. It was written in 2017 in response to a conference on social and epistemic justice in the wake of the 2015 student protest movements and was written collaboratively by an intergenerational group of educators working on a course in the Engineering and Built Environment (EBE) Faculty at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. All of us have a strong commitment to social justice, and to providing engineering students with an opportunity to thi...
As community-university partnerships become more common, it is becoming increasingly apparent tha... more As community-university partnerships become more common, it is becoming increasingly apparent that challenges emerge whenever groups as different as universities and communities attempt to work together. These challenges are not yet well understood and new analytical approaches are urgently needed that frame the problems and suggest avenues by which they can be overcome. This paper employs the lens of boundary work to consider the ways in which higher education faculty, when they engage in activities at the intersection of the university and the community, experience dilemmas that are essentially those of boundary workers. This analysis is intended to suggest ways of providing support for faculty when they experience conflicts, tension, and a perceived lack of credibility in community-university partnership work.
Michigan Journal of Community Service-Learning, 2014
In this paper we explore an approach to developing and implementing service-learning and communit... more In this paper we explore an approach to developing and implementing service-learning and community-based research in a study-abroad program in Cape Town, South Africa. Drawing on a notion of partnerships reflecting the values of accompaniment and transparency, and influenced by the importance of learning service, we outline an intentional, engaged pedagogy and program design emphasizing collaborative inquiry and partnership development. However, such an approach is challenging and demands that we include an ontological project as part of our work. This, we believe, is crucial if global service-learning (GSL), often taking place in the Global South, is to become a robust, critical, and ethical practice. ********** For our programs, transparency begins with our own preparations with our own students, a reflexive understanding that even the nature of service is a shared construction and not something we bring whole cloth into the service locale. (Simonelli, Earle, & Story, 2004, p. 54)...
This chapter examines two global education programs in higher education, one in the global North ... more This chapter examines two global education programs in higher education, one in the global North and the other in the global South to explore the shift from command to community in leadership.
As community-university partnerships become more common throughout the world including in South A... more As community-university partnerships become more common throughout the world including in South Africa, it is becoming increasingly apparent that challenges emerge whenever groups as different as communities and universities attempt to work together. These challenges are not yet well understood. New analytical approaches are urgently needed that frame the problems and suggest avenues by which they can be overcome. This paper argues for the value of the analytical framework of ‘boundary work’ as a way to understand and address these challenges. Using the lens of boundary work and its insights into role tensions, this paper considers the ways in which higher education faculty, when they engage in activities at the intersection of the university and community, experience dilemmas that are essentially those of boundary workers. This boundary work analysis is intended to suggest better ways of providing support for faculty when they experience conflicts, tension and a perceived lack of credibility in this work. This article focuses on two quite different South African service learning partnerships, each of which is intended to link the core educational mission of higher education to service to community groups who can benefit from student engagement. The work of two higher education faculty is highlighted to examine these issues in detail. Faculty who engage in community-university partnerships are positioned—powerfully or not—on both or either sides of the university-community boundary. This was very different for the two faculty members whose courses are the focus of this analysis. How their boundary work developed was the result of the complex intersection of roles, knowledge, discourses, and tools of mediation. This article begins by outlining some theoretical resources that can assist us in understanding the complex work involved in service learning partnerships. These include the concepts of boundary work and communities of practice, and the tools provided by activity theory.
This symposium is interested in issues of knowledge and curriculum in higher education, raising q... more This symposium is interested in issues of knowledge and curriculum in higher education, raising questions about both in the call for submissions. One question is about the implications for knowledge of ‘boundary-crossing’ practices at the university-community boundary. Through developing a lens for understanding service learning as ‘boundary work’, I look at this issue together with the implications of boundary-crossing for academic/educator identities. I do not focus directly on knowledge and curriculum; however the questions I raise at the end of the paper have implications for both.
Collaborative community engaged scholarship has roots in many parts of the world, and engaged pra... more Collaborative community engaged scholarship has roots in many parts of the world, and engaged practitioners and researchers are increasingly finding each other and sharing resources globally. This article focuses on a “social responsiveness” initiative at the University of Cape Town. Its story, told here by three University of Cape Town colleagues, illustrates the possibilities and complexities of this work in southern Africa. While strongly contextualized there, it also illustrates how the University of Cape Town has both benefited from and contributed to the broader international discussions taking place through TRUCEN, the Talloires Network, and other means.
In this paper the authors explore an approach to the development and implementation of service-le... more In this paper the authors explore an approach to the development and implementation of service-learning and community-based research in a study-abroad program in Cape Town, South Africa. Drawing on a notion of partnerships as ‘accompaniment and transparency’, and influenced by the importance of ‘learning service’, we outline an intentional, engaged pedagogy and program design emphasizing collaborative inquiry and partnership development. However, such an approach is challenging and demands that we include an ontological project as part of our work. This we believe is crucial if global service-learning (GSL), often taking place in the Global South, is to become a robust, critical and ethical practice.
This article explores service learning via the lens of activity theory. Through this lens, it is ... more This article explores service learning via the lens of activity theory. Through this lens, it is identified as a form of ‘boundary work’ in higher education, with educators identified as ‘boundary workers’. Drawing on the data from a recent study, this paper analyses service learning as an often contradictory and tension-filled practice. The ‘expanded community’ and ‘dual but interrelated object’
International Journal of Engineering, Social Justice, and Peace, 2021
Critical Conversations are held by members of the greater Engineering, Social Justice, and Peace ... more Critical Conversations are held by members of the greater Engineering, Social Justice, and Peace network in the activist tradition of reflecting on our public engagement and collectively discovering ways of deepening our action. The particpants are selected based on their submissions (Expressions of Interest) in response to the Call for Participation in the Critcial Conversations disseminated through the ESJP website (esjp.org). For years, we have gathered in locations immersed in nature. In 2018 and 2019, the gathering took place in Cala Munda, organized by Caroline Baillie and Eric Feinblatt, in the beautiful Catskills mountains in upstate New York in the U.S.A. We want to feel our connection with the land while we engage in critical conversations on the intersection of the engineering field with social justice and peace. Caroline Baillie facilitates these conversations employing forest pedagogy. Through this pedagogy, we open our hearts to the forest for seeking guidance on how o...
International Journal of Engineering, Social Justice, and Peace
In engineering education there is fairly wide recognition of the value of community-based work fo... more In engineering education there is fairly wide recognition of the value of community-based work for student engineers. However, such interactions are often conflicted, spread between the fear that there might be some exploitation of the community for educational purposes, or perceptions of a lack of honest integration and participation by students, within their busy educational term-sessions. How can we, as academics, play a role in developing more progressive university and community connections, with greater intention in the role that students and universities play? In this shared conversation, four academics and a student participate in an online conversation over several months, developing a discourse that explores, and rather than proposing, and remains open to further exploration.
Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement, 2016
This article reports on a project focused on understanding the work of the Knowledge Co-op (KC) a... more This article reports on a project focused on understanding the work of the Knowledge Co-op (KC) at the University of Cape Town in terms of community engagement and partnership building. The project tested tools for analyzing complex university–community interactions, or “boundary work.” Rather than analyzing the actual partnerships and research itself, activity theory was used as a framework for understanding the role of the KC broker, a key role in university–community partnership work. The activity theory lens assisted in identifying the complex work entailed in the broker role. In particular, the authors argue that in order to understand what happens at the university–community nexus, the unit of analysis needs to shift from individualized practices toward the transaction/boundary zone where these interactions take place.
International Journal of Engineering, Social Justice, and Peace, 2021
Globally, higher education is at a crossroads on so many levels: funding, course development, who... more Globally, higher education is at a crossroads on so many levels: funding, course development, who our students are, what knowledge is relevant for the world of work and beyond, what kinds of students do we want to graduate, and who are we as educators. All these questions (and more) have been around for some time; the current COVID-19 context however brings them even more sharply to the fore. This paper responds to the prompt about how we train professionals for the future so that they don’t participate in systems of oppression and inequality. It was written in 2017 in response to a conference on social and epistemic justice in the wake of the 2015 student protest movements and was written collaboratively by an intergenerational group of educators working on a course in the Engineering and Built Environment (EBE) Faculty at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. All of us have a strong commitment to social justice, and to providing engineering students with an opportunity to thi...
As community-university partnerships become more common, it is becoming increasingly apparent tha... more As community-university partnerships become more common, it is becoming increasingly apparent that challenges emerge whenever groups as different as universities and communities attempt to work together. These challenges are not yet well understood and new analytical approaches are urgently needed that frame the problems and suggest avenues by which they can be overcome. This paper employs the lens of boundary work to consider the ways in which higher education faculty, when they engage in activities at the intersection of the university and the community, experience dilemmas that are essentially those of boundary workers. This analysis is intended to suggest ways of providing support for faculty when they experience conflicts, tension, and a perceived lack of credibility in community-university partnership work.
Michigan Journal of Community Service-Learning, 2014
In this paper we explore an approach to developing and implementing service-learning and communit... more In this paper we explore an approach to developing and implementing service-learning and community-based research in a study-abroad program in Cape Town, South Africa. Drawing on a notion of partnerships reflecting the values of accompaniment and transparency, and influenced by the importance of learning service, we outline an intentional, engaged pedagogy and program design emphasizing collaborative inquiry and partnership development. However, such an approach is challenging and demands that we include an ontological project as part of our work. This, we believe, is crucial if global service-learning (GSL), often taking place in the Global South, is to become a robust, critical, and ethical practice. ********** For our programs, transparency begins with our own preparations with our own students, a reflexive understanding that even the nature of service is a shared construction and not something we bring whole cloth into the service locale. (Simonelli, Earle, & Story, 2004, p. 54)...
This chapter examines two global education programs in higher education, one in the global North ... more This chapter examines two global education programs in higher education, one in the global North and the other in the global South to explore the shift from command to community in leadership.
As community-university partnerships become more common throughout the world including in South A... more As community-university partnerships become more common throughout the world including in South Africa, it is becoming increasingly apparent that challenges emerge whenever groups as different as communities and universities attempt to work together. These challenges are not yet well understood. New analytical approaches are urgently needed that frame the problems and suggest avenues by which they can be overcome. This paper argues for the value of the analytical framework of ‘boundary work’ as a way to understand and address these challenges. Using the lens of boundary work and its insights into role tensions, this paper considers the ways in which higher education faculty, when they engage in activities at the intersection of the university and community, experience dilemmas that are essentially those of boundary workers. This boundary work analysis is intended to suggest better ways of providing support for faculty when they experience conflicts, tension and a perceived lack of credibility in this work. This article focuses on two quite different South African service learning partnerships, each of which is intended to link the core educational mission of higher education to service to community groups who can benefit from student engagement. The work of two higher education faculty is highlighted to examine these issues in detail. Faculty who engage in community-university partnerships are positioned—powerfully or not—on both or either sides of the university-community boundary. This was very different for the two faculty members whose courses are the focus of this analysis. How their boundary work developed was the result of the complex intersection of roles, knowledge, discourses, and tools of mediation. This article begins by outlining some theoretical resources that can assist us in understanding the complex work involved in service learning partnerships. These include the concepts of boundary work and communities of practice, and the tools provided by activity theory.
This symposium is interested in issues of knowledge and curriculum in higher education, raising q... more This symposium is interested in issues of knowledge and curriculum in higher education, raising questions about both in the call for submissions. One question is about the implications for knowledge of ‘boundary-crossing’ practices at the university-community boundary. Through developing a lens for understanding service learning as ‘boundary work’, I look at this issue together with the implications of boundary-crossing for academic/educator identities. I do not focus directly on knowledge and curriculum; however the questions I raise at the end of the paper have implications for both.
Collaborative community engaged scholarship has roots in many parts of the world, and engaged pra... more Collaborative community engaged scholarship has roots in many parts of the world, and engaged practitioners and researchers are increasingly finding each other and sharing resources globally. This article focuses on a “social responsiveness” initiative at the University of Cape Town. Its story, told here by three University of Cape Town colleagues, illustrates the possibilities and complexities of this work in southern Africa. While strongly contextualized there, it also illustrates how the University of Cape Town has both benefited from and contributed to the broader international discussions taking place through TRUCEN, the Talloires Network, and other means.
In this paper the authors explore an approach to the development and implementation of service-le... more In this paper the authors explore an approach to the development and implementation of service-learning and community-based research in a study-abroad program in Cape Town, South Africa. Drawing on a notion of partnerships as ‘accompaniment and transparency’, and influenced by the importance of ‘learning service’, we outline an intentional, engaged pedagogy and program design emphasizing collaborative inquiry and partnership development. However, such an approach is challenging and demands that we include an ontological project as part of our work. This we believe is crucial if global service-learning (GSL), often taking place in the Global South, is to become a robust, critical and ethical practice.
This article explores service learning via the lens of activity theory. Through this lens, it is ... more This article explores service learning via the lens of activity theory. Through this lens, it is identified as a form of ‘boundary work’ in higher education, with educators identified as ‘boundary workers’. Drawing on the data from a recent study, this paper analyses service learning as an often contradictory and tension-filled practice. The ‘expanded community’ and ‘dual but interrelated object’
In D. E. Lund (Ed.), Handbook of service-learning for social justice. Wiley, 2018
In response to paternalistic forms of international volunteering, voluntourism, global service-le... more In response to paternalistic forms of international volunteering, voluntourism, global service-learning, and similar versions of "community tourism," an approach to ethical global development cooperation, fair trade learning (FTL), takes an abiding commitment to reciprocity as a foundational assumption. This commitment to reciprocity grew from a partnership with a community organization in rural Jamaica, and therefore has its genesis in the Global South (Hartman, 2015; Hartman, Paris, & Blache-Cohen, 2012, 2014). However, the individuals who have been the primary presenters of and authors about FTL are from the Global North. While there are some defensible reasons for this, this pattern of Northern authorship embodies a conflict with the commitments intended by FTL standards, which include deliberate co-generation and coproduction of knowledge as components of reciprocity (Hartman, 2015; Hartman, Paris, & Blache-Cohen, 2014). This chapter first considers the practical repercussions of coupling the notion of global standards with continuous commitment to co-generation and co-ownership, while highlighting the importance of embracing that struggle. It then shares perspectives on FTL standards from development and academic professionals in India and South Africa. Finally, it concludes with recommendations for deliberate coupling of standards, continuous criticality, and commitment to co-generation.
Uploads
Papers by Janice McMillan
Using the lens of boundary work and its insights into role tensions, this paper considers the ways in which higher education faculty, when they engage in activities at the intersection of the university and community, experience dilemmas that are essentially those of boundary workers. This boundary work analysis is intended to suggest better ways of providing support for faculty when they experience conflicts, tension and a perceived lack of credibility in this work.
This article focuses on two quite different South African service learning partnerships, each of which is intended to link the core educational mission of higher education to service to community groups who can benefit from student engagement. The work of two higher education faculty is highlighted to examine these issues in detail. Faculty who engage in community-university partnerships are positioned—powerfully or not—on both or either sides of the university-community boundary. This was very different for the two faculty members whose courses are the focus of this analysis. How their boundary work developed was the result of the complex intersection of roles, knowledge, discourses, and tools of mediation.
This article begins by outlining some theoretical resources that can assist us in understanding the complex work involved in service learning partnerships. These include the concepts of boundary work and communities of practice, and the tools provided by activity theory.
Using the lens of boundary work and its insights into role tensions, this paper considers the ways in which higher education faculty, when they engage in activities at the intersection of the university and community, experience dilemmas that are essentially those of boundary workers. This boundary work analysis is intended to suggest better ways of providing support for faculty when they experience conflicts, tension and a perceived lack of credibility in this work.
This article focuses on two quite different South African service learning partnerships, each of which is intended to link the core educational mission of higher education to service to community groups who can benefit from student engagement. The work of two higher education faculty is highlighted to examine these issues in detail. Faculty who engage in community-university partnerships are positioned—powerfully or not—on both or either sides of the university-community boundary. This was very different for the two faculty members whose courses are the focus of this analysis. How their boundary work developed was the result of the complex intersection of roles, knowledge, discourses, and tools of mediation.
This article begins by outlining some theoretical resources that can assist us in understanding the complex work involved in service learning partnerships. These include the concepts of boundary work and communities of practice, and the tools provided by activity theory.