Proposal Overview 

International service learning (ISL) continues to expand as a pedagogy that fulfills growing demands for universities to provide global learning opportunities for students in the context of intensifying calls for higher education internationalization (Larkin, 2013).  This research investigates the influence that humanitarian discourses have on students’ perceptions of the possibility for social change through ISL.  There is a growing recognition in the critical research literature that identifies how power and privilege are mediated through the ISL experience and questions if it is possible, within the context of a colonial institution, the university, to reframe ISL relationships. Additionally, a number of recent studies critique the impact that ISL programs have on host community partners, a voice previously silenced in research designed to enhance practices or to measure the transformative impact of ISL on student participants (Kiely, 2005).  Focusing on moments of discomfort (Dear & Sharpe, 2013) and drawing attention to Otherness as a focal point in ISL pedagogy (Himley, 2004) take ISL practice and research in a direction which engages students in a deeply reflexive and situated ISL experience.

Working within the Social Justice and Peace Studies program at King’s University College, Ontario, Canada, this paper shares research findings from an investigation of the Guatemala Solidarity program.  This program is built on a commitment to experiential learning as a site to problematize social and international relationships and to make visible issues of individual and global power and privilege (Comacho, 2004).  As such it is committed to a “sustained, consequential and immersive practice of community based-learning within the legitimate space of an academic program” (Butin, 2004).   The Guatemala Solidarity program investigates the possibilities and limitations for engaging students with an intentional community, Nuevo Horizonte.  This cooperative community is dedicated to educating Global North citizens about the impact of protracted civil conflict on the community and its efforts to rebuild in the post-conflict era.  This research will engage with students over a six month period as they prepare and engage in ISL within the Nuevo Horizonte community.  It examines the possibilities and limitations of ethical relationships between participants and hosts.

Conceptual Framework & Research Questions

The conceptual framework for this research is theoretically informed by Mignolo’s (2007) work on liberation and solidarity as strategies to counter the enduring inequalities between Global North and South. It is a critical ethnographic inquiry into the process of preparing, engaging and reflecting on the ISL experience with students, and explores the formation of relationships between students and residents of Nuevo Horizonte from a decolonizing perspective (Tuwahi-Smith, 2012).  It follows students through all three phases of the program and seeks to identify key moments of disruption, insight, discomfort and change, from both students and community perspectives.  The research questions framing this study ask:

• How do students engage with the concepts of liberation and solidarity?
• How do the concepts of solidarity and liberation inform the process of relationship formation? 
• How do community hosts respond to students’ presence within the community?
• How do are the moments of disruption, insight, discomfort and change represented?

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