Can we learn from each other? Towards a global dialogue in community engagement

Abstract: Run by two Chilean scholars who have studied their PhDs in the United States and the United Kingdom, this roundtable will address the possibilities and current limitations of a global dialogue in community engagement. Presenters will reflect on their own rite of passage through World Class universities to later return to Chile and work with different university conditions, and the difficulties they have found trying to make the Chilean and Latin American experience on public engagement to be truly heard and valued, both by their Northern and Chilean colleagues.
An ample discussion is expected, which will be animated by the following questions: How do we engage in reciprocal relations at a global level? By doing so, to what extent are we reproducing neo-colonial relations? How do we address the power/resources imbalance? Can we learn from each other without romanticizing or being self-congratulatory? Can we expand the same principles of reciprocity used in community engagement projects to promote a global dialogue?
This sessions builds on the work of the Chilean Grupo de Estudios en Vinculación con el Medio y Extensión Universitaria (GEVEX), the US Collaborative Research Polson Group Extension and Community Engagement in Global Development, at Cornell University, and the Uruguayan International Seminar Historia y Presente de la Extensión Universitaria: diálogo sur-norte. Attendees will be invited to continue the conversation with the collaborative production of a declaration of principles for Global Dialogue in Community Engagement.

Narrative: This roundtable will discuss the possibilities and current limitations of a global dialogue in community engagement. The Conference’s question: How is service learning and community engagement implemented in different communities and parts of the world?, should be connected with several others that help us to understand the motivations, differences, and similarities in different contexts. How do we engage in reciprocal relations at a global level? By doing so, to what extent are we reproducing neo-colonial relations? How do we address power/resources imbalances? Can we learn from each other without romanticizing or being self-congratulatory? Can we expand the same principles of reciprocity used in community engagement projects to promote a global dialogue?

Our reflection comes from our experience being Chilean PhD students at Northern universities,[1] where we recognized ourselves (such as our visas did) as temporal travelers who knew they would have to return to work in Chile after graduation, with very different conditions.[2] Before that rite of passage, we both studied and worked at Universidad de Chile, one of the most important public Latin American Universities. There we learned from its rich history of “extensión universitaria”,[3] co-edited a volume describing 58 engagement projects,[4] and observed the intense support that mobilized scholars and students in one of the most violent social uprisings in recent Chilean history.[5]

In this journey, we have struggled to explain what community engagement looks like in Latin American universities to our Northern colleagues, considering its tradition that started in the early Twentieth Century and includes student movements, democratization processes, continental level conferences, and the challenging Freire’s insights; all interrupted by the military dictatorships in the 70s and 80s.[6] We have had to explain how, after those massacres and the defunding of public universities, engaged scholarship still exists. And we have discovered some puzzling facts, such as that the re-emergence of the engagement debate in the US in the 90s coincided with the Chilean higher education policy that attempted to erase that “extensión universitaria” tradition.[7]

When we are asked in Chile, Uruguay, or Brazil, about community engagement in the US or the UK, we always start addressing the massive differences in economic resources that support every community engagement office or project. We need to highlight the different social and economic contexts where universities are located. We also have to explain that, even in international conferences, usually Latin American scholars are left aside, sharing sessions only with scholars from other Southern countries, reducing the “international” character to a tokenist inclusion without comparative or cross-cultural analysis. Is this a real dialogue?

Still, the lack of interest in dialogue is not just a problem of Northern universities. On the one hand, Latin American universities and scholars usually interact with Northern universities to imitate their projects, concepts, or approaches; assuming they will always be better than the local ones. On the other hand, we have colleagues who are not interested in learning from Nothern experiences or in learning English because Northern because their institutions are perceived as complicit in the North-led interventions in Southern countries. Both approaches are problematic: looking at the North from a perspective of inferiority implies ignoring or undervaluing local traditions and experiences, but dismissing the possibility of dialogue also erodes the chance of exchange and co-learning.

We propose a roundtable discussion on how IARSLCE members understand the global dialogue and problematize the conditions for it. The roundtable will have a 10-minute introduction by Paulette and Matias, presenting four ideas:
1) We will never have a unique term to label the multiple practices and interactions between university and society, so focusing on looking for functional equivalents is more productive than trying literal translations.
2) Regardless of the differences between South and North, we all experience power imbalances, domination systems, and resistances within our own contexts, so focusing on those could be better than always looking at the differences between us.
3) The rigor of accountability, linked to classifications and accreditation processes, is increasingly influencing our daily practices in different contexts. Talking about our failures is not part of these processes, but would be a way to open an honest conversation and exchange of experiences.
4) The “internationalization” of community engagement projects through study abroad programs, outposts or global campuses, and the expansion of the Land Grants universities toward a World Grant mission imply new ethical questions for the field.

In small groups, attendees will discuss the four ideas and will propose new ones (30 minutes). Then, group representatives will have 20 minutes to share their collective reflections. Participants will be invited to continue the conversation after the session with the collaborative production of a declaration of principles for Global Dialogue in Community Engagement.

The significance of this discussion to the field has to do with advancing in new formats and ways of understanding, identification of commonalities and differences, common goals, translation of literature, and historical research on our trajectories.

The reflections that feed this proposal are part of an ongoing work of the Grupo de Estudios en Vinculación con el Medio y Extensión Universitaria (GEVEX), which gathers community engagement researchers and practitioners from nine Chilean universities; the Collaborative Research Polson Group Extension and Community Engagement in Global Development, at Cornell University; and the International Seminar Historia y Presente de la Extensión Universitaria: diálogo sur-norte, at Uruguay.

Regarding ethical considerations, our discussion will be based on our own experiences. Therefore, we will not expose sensitive data and will safeguard anonymity in our examples.

Footnotes:
[1] Paulette finished her PhD at University of Leeds and Matias is currently studying his at Cornell University.
[2] Following our public-funded fellowship requirements
[3] Which we understood as a functional equivalent of community engagement (Dougnac, 2016).
[4] (Póo et al, 2020)
[5] (Dougnac and Flores, 2021)
[6] Some of them were supported by Nothern countries in the context of the Cold War.
[7] During the last two decades Chile has exchanged its traditional concept “extensión universitaria” for an ambiguous “vinculación con el medio”.