Unsettling Colonial Relations in Experiential Education: Maya Ixil Perspectives on Decolonizing International Service Learning

International Service Learning (ISL) is a relatively young field of education research. Designed to be short-term experiential education programs, the traditional ISL curriculum harnesses direct interaction and cross- or inter-cultural exchanges between the Global North and Global South to provide opportunities for reflection and learning to occur. The field has focused on the impact of such programs for the Global North participants, primarily students, who participate. The existing literature highlights the benefits of this engaged form of learning citing academic, political, and moral growth. There are few studies that are critical of this approach to experiential education and fewer still that examine the impact of ISL on Global South host communities that receive these visitors. It is also the case that in the last decades the growth of ethical tourism has impacted educational programs such as ISL and, for host communities, the perceivable differences and impact are negligible. This study focuses on the community experience of ISL, narrowing the focus of the inquiry on one community in Guatemala that is home of the Maya Ixil people. The research design incorporates a theoretical framework that seeks to confront the colonial history that is deeply embedded in the practice of ISL and provide a lens through which to examine the transnational encounters that take place between people as Global North participants cross borders and bring with them historical and political identities in their visiting of Indigenous communities. For this reason this study also incorporates values and ideas from an Indigenous approach to research that emerged as the research team built relationships with the Ixil community. Over the course of four years several data gathering trips were made to the city of Nebaj, Guatemala where interviews and focus groups informed the bulk of the data. An important validation and feedback event that was called the Encuentro (gathering), took place in August 2017 and is a centerpiece of the research design and of this study. Recommendations were formed during this event, meant to be shared with host communities across Guatemala and Central America. The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of ISL on the Maya Ixil and tell the story of research that revealed the importance of identifying the colonial relations that have upheld both research practices in the Global South as well as the practice of ISL. The findings reveal that the impact of ISL on the Ixil community is misunderstood by Global North advocates and stakeholders. The necessity of unsettling colonial relations is recommended as an important step forward for the practice of ISL that seeks to facilitate experiential education in a good way

Sharing Oral History With Arctic Indigenous Communities: Ethical Implications of Bringing Back Research Results

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Corporate Social Responsibility: Small Businesses and Small Towns

This paper is a review of previous scholarship on the social responsibility of small businesses in small towns with the addition of findings from recent research on the subject conducted by the authors. We focused on the responsibility of businesses to work for community betterment which includes a wide variety of charitable and social causes. The extant literature and new research lead to several general conclusions. First most small business owners believe they have an obligation to work for community and societal betterment, but it is proportional to their size compared to other businesses in the same location. While the values of top management have a significant impact on the social performance of businesses of all sizes, in small businesses, social performance is more directly and personally shaped by the owners than is the case in large businesses. Small business owners are more socially and economically embedded within the community in which they operate than are managers of big businesses. Moreover, in small towns, they are more visible than similarly sized businesses in metropolitan locations. For this reason, size of town is a key intermediary variable between size of business and level of social performance. Partially as a result of their greater embeddedness and visibility, small business owners in small towns are likely to conform to the local patterns of civic engagement. For many of the same reasons, small business owners’ social performance is affected by the expectations and prevailing patterns of social performance displayed by members of the business networks to which they belong. Past research supports the argument that doing good is good for business in large and small firms alike although the relationship is less well documented for small businesses. We expand the research to consider the rewards and penalties of business social responsibility for the business owner personally. This is an important outcome of business social performance for all sizes of business, but for small businesses where owner discretion may be the only factor determining the community involvement of the business, it is critical. We end by advocating for more research attention directed toward small business social performance, the impact of town size on business social performance, and the personal costs and benefits of business social performance for the owners themselves

Field Experiments on Cooperation Behavior

This dissertation contains, next to an introductory chapter, four single essays. These essays investigate if and how people cooperate with each other. Three of the essays are based on economic field experiments conducted in the Kavango area in Northern Namibia as part of the SASSCAL research project. The research background is the sustainable use of natural resources. In particular, forest areas in the research region are being cleared in order to be converted into agriculturally used land, which does, in the long run, result in negative externalities on both, local and global scale. The principal questions that this thesis investigates are how scarcity affects resource use behavior, how external (monetary) incentives may be suitable as regulative measures and if simple communication between involved parties already results in more positive outcomes

Migrant Women's Philanthropic Practices From the Diaspora

The conceptualization of this research report (she gives back) started from Mama Cash' encounters, collaborations and partnerships with black, migrant and refugee women's rights activists and organizations in the Netherlands. The information presented in this report is therefore at the crux of two areas of increasing policy and research interest: the role of migrants as philanthropists for social change and the role and contributions of migrant women specifically

Culture, place and identity in a mobile community

Contemporary communities are no longer necessarily bound by the confines of a specific locality due to spatial mobility. My dissertation examines if and how mobile individuals may create community, the culture of one group, and the significance of place amidst mobility for creating community in modernity. I analyzed three years of ethnographic field notes and 44 interviews with individuals who attend the yearly arts event Burning Man in the Nevada desert. After the event, these burners return to their home environments, most of which are on the American west coast, but also spend a significant portion of their time traveling the world. I argue that regardless of the degree of spatial mobility, individuals in the extended global Burning Man community share common values, take part in relationships of mutual support, and have greater group commitments as a community. I focus on the urban context of Portland, Oregon and the role that place plays for mobile communities. I found that mobile actors create community by: (1) Turning the once place-based conception of the term into a group of collectively held action-oriented principles that include shared values and ideologies, identities, commitments, and lifestyles [and] (2) Transforming a variety of spaces into symbolic places of the community that help develop the solidarities of different extensions of the mobile group and provide sites of cultural integration. These places provide physical localities with which to produce and practice their counterculture, contribute to cultural integration and diffusion of various urban cultures, assist in the construction of a collective community identity, and reinforce a sense of mobile community belonging

Dinâmicas da reciprocidade no desenvolvimento de indivíduos, famílias, comunidades e programas : um olhar sobre a pobreza, a conexão e o bem-estar

Tese de doutoramento, Psicologia (Psicologia Clínica), Universidade de Lisboa e Universidade de Coimbra, 2018A realidade social está marcada por dificuldades e contrastes a nível económico, social e cultural, mas também por um enorme potencial humano que, quando estimulado, pode levar a mudanças surpreendentes e positivas. Esta investigação pretendeu estudar dois fenómenos que estão na base de tais contrastes, a pobreza e a exclusão social, a partir de uma abordagem holística, sistémica e centrada em boas-práticas, com vista a compreender que fatores contribuem para a sua superação, contribuindo para o bem-estar coletivo. O conceito de bem-estar coletivo foi colocado no horizonte desta investigação, procurando assim desenhar linhas de estudo novas, que incluíssem atores habitualmente não tomados em consideração, potenciando a emergência de novas compreensões e possibilidades. Com tal perspetiva, desafios como a pobreza e a exclusão, são compreendidos como fenómenos complexos, enraizados nas dinâmicas sociais, que afetam todos e onde todos podem colaborar na criação de soluções. Três estudos foram então desenvolvidos procurando perspetivar o fenómeno em estudo sob diversas lentes. O papel das redes primárias, das redes secundárias– tendo em conta experiências nacionais e internacionais – e as crenças e perceções da sociedade portuguesa relativamente às suas relações sociais e satisfação foram analisados, com vista a compreender o seu potencial para gerar conexão e bem-estar. Foram ainda intercalados diversos prismas de análise, complementando abordagens qualitativas e quantitativas, de análise Grounded Theory, temática e estatística. O primeiro estudo, de cariz qualitativo e focado nas interações ao nível da rede primária, em Portugal, introduz e explora o potencial da metodologia das Sessões com Audiências Apreciativas (Madsen, 2007) no contexto da investigação, descrevendo os processos psicossociais que emergiram da participação por grupos constituídos por participantes em situação de pobreza e participantes que não viviam em situação de pobreza (N=28), que frequentavam um mesmo espaço social e viviam na mesma comunidade, ainda que não se conhecessem. O segundo estudo, de cariz qualitativo e focado na prestação da rede secundária, apresenta 15 programas sociais e educacionais reconhecidos como boas-práticas a nível nacional e internacional, e faz um levantamento dos processos identificados como geradores de impacto e sucesso (N=91). O terceiro estudo envolve uma abordagem quantitativa para compreender as perceções e dinâmicas relacionais relativas à satisfação, apoio social percebido, sentido de comunidade, necessidade de competir, comparação social, vergonha externa e desejo de contribuir, numa amostra da população portuguesa (N= 1187). Em termos da análise, primeiramente foi desenvolvida uma Grounded Theory que envolveu os dados recolhidos no primeiro e segundo estudos. Essa análise levou à emergência de um modelo teórico “as dinâmicas da reciprocidade no desenvolvimento de indivíduos, famílias, comunidades e programas”. De seguida, procedeu-se a um aprofundamento específico de cada estudo, com recurso a análise temática, no caso dos estudos 1 e 2, e com recurso a análise estatística no caso do estudo 3. Com base nos resultados e aprendizagens recolhidas ao longo da investigação, é apresentado o processo de criação de um projeto social em Portugal – ComParte, refletindo-se sobre a integração entre a teoria e a prática. Finalmente, na discussão integrada refletimos sobre os contributos que esta investigação traz para o conhecimento teórico e prático na área do combate à pobreza e à exclusão social, bem como ao desenvolvimento de bem-estar coletivo. Terminamos esta reflexão ponderando limitações da investigação, sugerindo potenciais linhas de investigação futuras e sintetizando as principais linhas orientadoras para combater a pobreza e exclusão social, identificadas nesta investigação.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT), SFRH/BD/70322/2010; Quadro de Referência Estratégico Nacional (QREN, 2007 -2013), Programa Operacional Potencial Humano (POPH

The StartUPS Project at Politecnica Salesiana University (UPS): a Common Good Approach to Institutional Management and Human Development

The purpose of this research is to analyze the StartUPS project from the Politecnica Salesiana University and see how this open environment has enhanced people capabilities considering the person-centered vision and how the project base in common good management and capability approach helped the human development of these project participants. In this analysis the concept of development is reviewed from the well-fare to the well-being and contrast with modern and Andean perspectives aiming to understand different forms of development and management of common pool resources and how this set up a line for future research about how to mix these perspectives with the commonly known indicators to measure development. To measure the impact of the project over the participants development, quantitative and qualitative data was collected from the multiple activities and projects that took place under the project open spaces, data shown how almost unanimously not only the participants but also the mentors, professors and strategic allies improve their capabilities and indirectly their perceived self-well-being. Leaving also new research lines to study how strategic planned activities targeting specific functionings could be applied and improved, how Universities seen as an open environment could become community engagement agents improving the community and national well-being.Lo scopo di questa ricerca è analizzare il progetto StartUPS dell'Università Politecnica Salesiana e studiare come questo ambiente aperto abbia migliorato le capacità delle persone, considerando una visione centrata sulla persona e i pilastri del progetto: la gestione del bene comune e il capability approach, in modo che l'insieme migliorasse lo sviluppo umano dei partecipanti. Questa analisi passa in rassegna i concetti di sviluppo, dall'assistenza sociale (statale) al welfare [integrale], e li contrappone alle prospettive moderne e andine per comprendere le diverse forme di sviluppo, la gestione delle risorse del bene comune e, da questa prospettiva, stabilire una linea di ricerca che si combini con gli indicatori comunemente noti per misurare lo sviluppo. Per misurare l'impatto del progetto StartUPS sullo sviluppo dei partecipanti, sono stati raccolti dati quantitativi e qualitativi dalle molteplici attività e progetti realizzati negli ambienti aperti del progetto, dati che mostrano come quasi all'unanimità, non solo i partecipanti ma anche i mentori, i docenti e gli alleati dell'università abbiano migliorato le loro capacità e indirettamente il loro benessere percepito. Questa analisi propone anche nuove linee di ricerca per studiare come le attività strategiche possano essere implementate e migliorate per le functioning, e come le università, viste come un ambiente aperto, potrebbero diventare agenti di coinvolgimento della comunità che migliorano il benessere della comunità e del Paese

Digital environments: ethnographic perspectives across global online and offline spaces

Digital technology permeates the physical world. Social media and virtual reality, accessed via internet capable devices - computers, smartphones, tablets and wearables - affect nearly all aspects of social life. The contributions to this volume apply innovative forms of ethnographic research to the digital realm. They examine the emergence of new forms of digital life, such as political participation through comments on East Greenlandic news blogs, the personal use of video broadcasting applications, the rise of transnational migrant networks facilitated by social media, or the effects of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram on global conflicts

Digital Environments

Digital technology already has permeated the physical world. Devices such as smartphones, tablets or wearables and online venues like virtual worlds and social networks have penetrated every part of our lives. The contributions to this volume apply innovative forms of ethnographic research to the digital realm. They examine the emergence of new online communities around Greenlandic news blogs or Malaysian LGBT Facebook groups, the rise of transnational migrant networks facilitated by social media, or the representation of conflicts and the proliferation of ideologies within online spaces