Letting the village be the teacher: The importance of place-based knowledge in study abroad programming

• In Event: Roundtable Session (Wednesday II)
  In Refereed Round-Table Session: Conceptualizing local and indigenous knowledge: exploring research approaches of three doctoral candidates in Tanzania, Thailand, and the United States

Proposal

Looking at a field studies program in Northern Thailand, this paper uses critical ethnographic case study methods and grounded theory to examine how a small agrarian community in Northern Thailand has been impacted by a 20-year partnership with a local study abroad organization. My research on this program has three purposes: to highlight the specific case of international field programs as worthy of study and as distinctly different as service programs, to identify and discuss initial findings on the centrality of local knowledge and community impact, and to invite faculty and administrators to engage and consider implications of these findings for their own program design and pedagogy on international field programs. Research on teaching and learning in study abroad tends to focus on the benefits and positive learning outcomes for students, with a one-sided focus on student learning and knowledge production (Bloomgarden, 2017). The discourse of study abroad in the U.S. focuses on “going” and not on impact (Barkin, 2018; Landon et al. 2017). During the study abroad program, U.S. undergraduates spend time living in homestays and learning from villagers about sustainable agricultural practices. Sustainable development is taught through ‘community-based courses’, or field programs, that scaffold sustainability curriculum with “intensive study of place” (Ritchie, 2013, p. 3). Inspired by Chambers (1992) work on participatory rural development, the pedagogy of ‘community-based learning’ has an explicit goal of giving communities a voice in the curriculum, creating space for them to co-create and co-teach course content (Ritchie, 2013). During the program, students live with host families and learn from local people about traditional ways of knowing and being, concerns and challenges that they are facing, and sustainability strategies specific to the community. My research explores issues related to reciprocal learning, particularly in terms of host communities, as part of the “ecology of education,” or the interconnected web of relationships in which learning occurs everywhere (Garcia & Longo, 2013). In answering my research questions about the economic and social impact of the program, one of the major findings that emerged is the centrality of local knowledge. The valuation of local knowledge and the central role it plays in course curriculum is the main reason that the community maintains a relationship with the program. Local knowledge is also central to the intentional design of the course itself. The benefits to the community of centering place-based knowledge has implications for institutions and faculty planning short-term field programs, demonstrated by the challenge that program administration face getting buy-in to this curricular model from traditionally-trained Euro-American academics wanting to partner with them to develop short-term courses in Thailand.

Author

• Lauren Collins, University of Denver