102
V. R. Vargas et al.
economic and epistemic power relations that clearly exist between the global north
and the global south, with epistemic dominance of a eurocentric curriculum, and the
still remote notion that the global north might actually have things to learn from the
global south.
The researchers agreed that the awareness of one’s identity played a crucial role in
the design and implementation of the sustainable development project in the Dique
Channel. The researchers also felt that this could potentially be the case in other
projects that try not to engage with historically ingrained power relations between
the Global South/Global North power but to create a more balanced dialogue. The
discomfort felt, for example, particularly by Researcher B was, as Andreotti (2016)
discusses, a discomfort and challenge to a frame of reference and worldview that
is inevitable if we continue to ask searching questions regarding our own motivations—in fact, if we do not experience some discomfort, one could argue, we are not
challenging ourselves sufficiently.
5.2 The Role of HE as Global Citizen, Considerations
and Potential Impact
Accountability in higher education institutions in the UK is increasingly linked to
measurable results (Schmidt and Günther 2016). For colleagues in research active
positions, this is linked to the quantity and quality of research, with a tendency towards
focusing on the quantity rather than the quality (Schmidt and Günther 2016). This
means that research projects are ruled by strict time constraints. Therefore, the time to
reflect and build awareness around researchers’ identities is limited. Also, reflection
around researchers’ identity is not common practice in all research approaches, or in
all disciplines. With sustainable development requiring multidisciplinary approaches,
reflection on researchers’ identities and motivations may not always be necessarily
part of these projects.
One possible way to ensure that this type of reflection is embedded throughout a
project, is to include this in the design of the research. Andreotti (2016) devised a
pedagogical tool for critiquing paternalistic and ethnocentric soft global citizenship
approaches to education for international development. The tool was designed for
education for a critical global citizenship, and could be used to interrogate the motivations and reflections of the researchers involved in a ‘service learning’ project. The
tool asks the user to consider seven patterns of engagement and representation: hegemony, ethnocentrism, ahistoricism, depoliticisation, self-serving attitudes, simplistic
solutions, and paternalism. It provides questions to interrogate the attitudes of the
user to each of these and asks whose knowledge is being privileged.
One of the main problems for universities in developed countries (representing
Higher Education and Research) when working with communities in developing
countries (Global South) is how to engage with the communities in International
Experiential Service Learning -IESL and Global Citizenship Education-GCE without
V. R. Vargas et al.
economic and epistemic power relations that clearly exist between the global north
and the global south, with epistemic dominance of a eurocentric curriculum, and the
still remote notion that the global north might actually have things to learn from the
global south.
The researchers agreed that the awareness of one’s identity played a crucial role in
the design and implementation of the sustainable development project in the Dique
Channel. The researchers also felt that this could potentially be the case in other
projects that try not to engage with historically ingrained power relations between
the Global South/Global North power but to create a more balanced dialogue. The
discomfort felt, for example, particularly by Researcher B was, as Andreotti (2016)
discusses, a discomfort and challenge to a frame of reference and worldview that
is inevitable if we continue to ask searching questions regarding our own motivations—in fact, if we do not experience some discomfort, one could argue, we are not
challenging ourselves sufficiently.
5.2 The Role of HE as Global Citizen, Considerations
and Potential Impact
Accountability in higher education institutions in the UK is increasingly linked to
measurable results (Schmidt and Günther 2016). For colleagues in research active
positions, this is linked to the quantity and quality of research, with a tendency towards
focusing on the quantity rather than the quality (Schmidt and Günther 2016). This
means that research projects are ruled by strict time constraints. Therefore, the time to
reflect and build awareness around researchers’ identities is limited. Also, reflection
around researchers’ identity is not common practice in all research approaches, or in
all disciplines. With sustainable development requiring multidisciplinary approaches,
reflection on researchers’ identities and motivations may not always be necessarily
part of these projects.
One possible way to ensure that this type of reflection is embedded throughout a
project, is to include this in the design of the research. Andreotti (2016) devised a
pedagogical tool for critiquing paternalistic and ethnocentric soft global citizenship
approaches to education for international development. The tool was designed for
education for a critical global citizenship, and could be used to interrogate the motivations and reflections of the researchers involved in a ‘service learning’ project. The
tool asks the user to consider seven patterns of engagement and representation: hegemony, ethnocentrism, ahistoricism, depoliticisation, self-serving attitudes, simplistic
solutions, and paternalism. It provides questions to interrogate the attitudes of the
user to each of these and asks whose knowledge is being privileged.
One of the main problems for universities in developed countries (representing
Higher Education and Research) when working with communities in developing
countries (Global South) is how to engage with the communities in International
Experiential Service Learning -IESL and Global Citizenship Education-GCE without