Whose Knowledge Matters: An Examination of Anti-colonialism, Hierarchies of Knowledge, and Service-Learning

Abstract: Whose Knowledge Matters: An Examination of Anti-colonialism, Hierarchies of Knowledge, and Service-Learning sets out to interrogate the existing frameworks and scaffolding universities use to maintain an anti-racist and anti-colonial approach to service-learning and community-university partnerships. This project will interrogate: (1) How the hierarchy of knowledge and expertise affects community-university partnerships; (2) What steps universities are taking to align themselves with their purported mission statement for diversity, equity, and inclusion; (3) If universities are acknowledging the ongoing historical trauma perpetuated by the Academy. The primary theoretical framework of this project is Critical Community Service-Learning (CCSL) with an intentional anti-colonial stance. CCSL is an off-shoot of Derrick Bell’s Critical Race Theory tailored to the context of service-learning building upon the work of Paulo Freire. CCSL adopts a core tenet of Critical Race Theory by emphasizing the need to amplify counter-narratives of the impacted marginalized communities and their traditional ancestral knowledge.

Meaning-making is socially constructed through dialogue and shared inquiry. Join us as we enter the beginning stage of unpacking ways in which the Academy upholds or dismantles the hierarchy of academic and traditional knowledge sources and the resulting effects on community-university partnerships within the context of service-learning through the lens of CCSL and an anti-colonial stance.

Keywords: critical community service learning, anti-colonial, knowledge hierarchies, community-university partnership

Narrative: The proposed purpose of this project is to investigate frameworks and scaffolding that support an anti-racist and anti-colonial approach to service-learning and community-university partnerships. This project aims to investigate the following research questions: (1) How is the hierarchy of knowledge and expertise affecting community-university partnerships? (2) What steps are universities taking to align themselves with their purported mission statements for diversity, equity, and inclusion? (3) Are universities acknowledging the ongoing historical trauma perpetuated by the Academy?

The primary theoretical framework of this project is Critical Community Service-Learning (CCSL) with an intentional anti-colonial stance. CCSL is an off-shoot of Derrick Bell’s Critical Race Theory (CRT) tailored to the context of service-learning building upon the work of Paulo Freire. Freire (1970) illustrated the transformational nature of co-intentional education, praxis, and reflection. CCSL maintains that anti-colonialism is intrinsically praxis and not a metaphorical lens through which to understand service-learning and community-university partnerships and the CRT tenet of the amplification counter-narratives, community voices, and the value of traditional ancestral knowledge systems (Mitchell, 2008; Santiago-Ortiz, 2019). Kolb's (1984) traditional Experiential Learning Theory is the cyclical process of concrete experience, reflective observation, abstract conceptualization, and active experimentation. According to Mitchell (2008), CCSL diverges from traditional service-learning models with the addition of social change, power redistribution, and the development of authentic relationships between the learner, the community, and the university.

CCSL emphasizes how a student, community, or organization’s positionality in the context of a specific place and time affects the way relationships function and power is distributed. CCSL centers on social justice, equity, inclusion, and diversity (Mitchell, 2008) and aligns with an anti-colonial stance toward hierarchies of knowledge (Santiago-Ortiz, 2019). Mitchell (2008) and Santiago-Ortiz (2019) both emphasize CCSL’s power for transformational shifts in social injustices toward equity and the redistribution of stolen power. CCSL is uniquely orientated to account for the intersectionality of race, gender, class, sexuality, and age. While this list is not exhaustive, it provides insight into ways in which CCSL broadens the discussion on community-university partnerships and systems of oppression. Mitchell (2008) emphasizes the importance of going beyond naming differences and similarities between the university, its students, and the community—CCSL as praxis demands that the learner work toward dismantling systems of oppression and unjust structures.

This participatory action project is currently in the developing stages and reserves the right to shift its research design and methodology to honor the relationship of the university and community as co-researchers with the intention to challenge the traditional inequity in these types of partnerships. The current research design is phenomenological with an aim to center the lived experiences, perceptions, and feelings of communities regarding service-learning and their partnerships with the university. The research questions address existing hierarchies of knowledge ways and the effect this has on community-university relationships, the ways in which universities are or are not aligning their policies and actions to their DEI mission statements and the acknowledgment or erasure of the Academy’s role in historical trauma and oppression of marginalized communities. The methodological approach is qualitative interviews. The practical significance and implications of this research are to identify the community perspectives of points of tension and inequity within existing frameworks of service-learning and community-university partnerships and name opportunities for future scholarship surrounding best practices for an anti-colonial and anti-racist stance. There are opportunities for future scholarship regarding the unique relationship between academic and traditional ancestral knowledge and how universities are upholding or dismantling the monopoly the Academy holds as the keepers of knowledge.

Keywords: critical community service learning, anti-colonial, knowledge hierarchies, community-university partnership

References
Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. Penguin Books.
Kolb, D. A., (1984). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development. Prentice-Hall, Inc.
Mitchell, T. D. (2008). Traditional vs. critical service-learning: Engaging the literature to differentiate two models. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, 14(2), 50-65.
Santiago-Ortiz, A. (2019). From critical to decolonizing service-learning: Limits and possibilities
to social justice-based approaches to Community Service Learning. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, 24(2), 43–54. https://doi.org/10.3998/mjcsloa.3239521.0024.204