Book Review: Perspectives on volunteering: Voices from the South by Butcher, J., & Einolf, C. J. (Eds.)

Book review of Butcher J. and Einolf C. J. (Eds.). (2017). Perspectives on volunteering: Voices from the South. Cham, Switzerland: Springer. 297 pp. Published in Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, Volume 47, Issue 6, Pages: 1313 - 1316

Setting Spaces for Youth and Student-Led Advocacy: Analysis of the impact of COVID-19 on youth and student organising calls for urgent action towards inclusion of youth and students in advocacy spaces

There is overwhelming evidence on the complex and multiple impact of the pandemic on young people’s education and employment. However, little is known about how COVID-19 has influenced youth and student organising and activism. This Report – commissioned by the Global Campaign for Education – brings fresh insight on the realities and experiences of youth and student organisers during the COVID-19 pandemic. It draws from a desk review and semi-structured interviews with youth and student organisers, stakeholders, and regional leaders from the GCE’s youth and student networks in Africa, Latin America, the Middle East & North Africa, and South East Asia

Reflecting on the ethics of PhD research in the Global South: reciprocity, reflexivity and situatedness

This paper explores ethical issues of reciprocity, reflexivity and situatedness in conducting ethnographic fieldwork in the Global South as part of PhD research projects. Against the backdrop of increasingly bureaucratised doctoral processes, we argue that PhD students occupy a particular terrain that involves continuous navigation of tensions between institutionally-required ethical procedures and ‘situational’ ethical processes in the field. We illustrate these tensions by analysing reflections on our experiences of conducting fieldwork in Indonesia, India and the Philippines. Guided by decolonial and feminist thought highlighting the politics of knowledge (co)production, this paper unpacks the problems of insider-outsider binaries and standardised ethical procedures, and explores the possibilities of ethics as visible, collaborative negotiation

Students by day, rebels by night? Criminalising student dissent in shrinking democracies

Student activists have been at the helm of social movements around the world throughout history. Inspired by stubborn optimism and undying dreams for a just society, students have long confronted dominant social and political norms. They have been actively campaigning for solutions to broader issues beyond the campus and the classroom – from the apartheid and Vietnam war, austerity measures and unemployment, neo-liberal policies and capitalism, environmental justice and climate change, to responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. As students continually prove that they are neither ‘apathetic’ nor ‘disengaged’, their acts and voices of dissent have been met with stringent surveillance, vicious policing, criminalisation, and killings – violent responses that have become more frequent, coercive and intense in light of the current pandemic. Several public and policy discourses have the tendency to frame students as ‘dangerous subjects’ that must be feared, justifying the need for their governance and control. This report challenges these binaries that seem to frame these activists as ‘students by day, rebels by night’ (as in report title) by highlighting the many roles, motivations, aims and approches of student-led movements globally. Against the backdrop of pervasive social issues and newer ones (such as the pandemic), this report aims to give an overview of the current landscape of student activism in different regions of the world, the threats student activists encounter, and the strategies they use in the face of such threats. Drawing from first-hand interviews with student activists from Egypt, Colombia, Zimbabwe, Philippines, Thailand, and Sudan, this report is a bid to urgently put a spotlight on the alarming oppression of student activist movements all over the world. To do this, we draw attention to the significant roles students have played across moments of mass movements throughout history that have led to widespread policy changes, falls of regimes and shifts in perspectives. By highlighting the legitimate and powerful impact of students now and then, we aim to encourage policymakers, practitioners, academics and agencies to engage in a serious conversation about how to best recognise and protect student activists as defenders of human rights

Cooperation, collaboration and compromise: Learning through difference and diversity

Multi-institutional and multi-professional research projects are valued for the impact and learning they generate, but their successful completion is crucially dependent on the various actors recognising their differences and working through/with them as a team. This paper is a critical reflection on one such participatory action research project, which involved new migrants and asylum seekers, an NGO, university researchers, and independent trainers in offering intercultural sexual health and gender relations workshops. It charts the course of this project by introducing the key players and focusing on significant differences and opportunities, and the critical learnings that this generated. The paper uses the concept of the ‘paradox lens’ as a way of understanding emerging dilemmas and tensions, and the subsequent compromises, co-operations and collaborations that ensued. In closing, it offers a set of principles generated from reflections on learning that occurred during the project, and which may be amended and adapted for other contexts and action research encounters that hope to engender collaborative learning

Ethnographies of Volunteering: Providing Nuance to the Links Between Volunteering and Development

This paper explores how ethnographic approaches to third sector and nonprofit studies allow for context-based understandings of the links between volunteering and development. Drawing from our ethnographies of volunteering in Sierra Leone, Burundi and the Philippines, we argue that ethnographic methods could tease out local ideologies and practices of volunteer work that can challenge knowledge monopolies over how volunteering is understood and, later, transcribed into development policy and practice at various levels. The contribution of ethnography as a methodology to third sector research lies not only in the in-depth data it generates but also in the kind of ethos and disposition it requires of scholars—providing attention to issues of power and voice and leaning into the unpredictability of the research process

Adult literacy and learning for social change: innovation, influence and the role of non-state actors; case studies from Afghanistan, China, the Philippines and Senegal

The four case studies offer insights into how non-state actors in these contrasting country contexts have influenced adult literacy and learning, not only within education but across sectors. Whilst several key non-state actors reviewed here were initially invited by governments to fill the gaps in adult literacy or learning provision through contributing technical expertise or finance, they began to play a strong role in expanding the curriculum, working with different community-level organisations and/or new approaches to learning (including online). Their impact ranged from introducing innovative learning spaces and adult literacy approaches, to developing systems for quality assurance and accreditation and finding new ways to engage with previously marginalised groups. Exploring the complexity of relationships between state and nonstate actors, this overview argues that changing social values that lie beyond formal development and educational institutions are influencing the kind of adult education provided by the state. There is an urgent need for strong state leadership and dedicated funding to ensure that high quality and inclusive adult literacy and learning programmes can operate successfully on a national scale and non-state actors could play a greater role in advocating for such changes

Impact of COVID19 on Adult Learning and Education (ALE): UK case study

The findings of this study in the UK suggest that those working in Adult Learning and Education (ALE) in Islington feel that the COVID-19 pandemic has had a higher impact on ALE than other education sectors. Within ALE, the impact of the pandemic has been disproportionately high on the most marginalised ALE learners. The pandemic has highlighted the role of ALE as a frontline community service, strengthening the sense of community and providing valuable links between service providers and some of the most marginalised in the community. The COVID-19 pandemic posed a considerable challenge to ALE provision in the UK, disrupting the service and presenting a steep learning curve to tutors, coordinators and managers. Providers of ALE responded quickly with provision in Islington converting to online delivery within a couple of weeks. The Adult and Community Learning (ACL) curriculum was adapted rapidly in response to the COVID19 pandemic, to address the immediate challenges faced by learners in their lives and livelihoods. On-going reflection and dialogue about the appropriate curriculum and mode(s) of delivery continue. In the post-pandemic climate, Information Technology (IT) is no longer seen as a discrete topic to be studied, but as an essential component of ALE and as a cross-cutting theme, similar to literacy and numeracy, embedded into all provision from entry level onwards. All of these changes need to be seen in the light of the finding that the pandemic disproportionately impacted the most vulnerable ALE learners and those in the community who had least access to support and resources. Further research is required to explore ways of ensuring continued access to support and learning services by the most vulnerable adult groups in future crises

Learning to work in certain ways: Bureaucratic literacies and community-based volunteering in the Philippines

Concerns have emerged of how the professionalization agenda in the development sector may water down the ‘spirit of volunteerism’ that thrives on community initiative, informality, and flexibility. This paper explores the role of literacy and learning practices in the bureaucratization of community development drawing from an ethnography of local volunteering in the Philippines. Through literacy practices such as preparing community health classes, making budget plans, and writing to government institutions, volunteers were inducted into ‘bureaucratic’ ways of working that, at times, clashed with their expectations and practices of volunteering that were founded on community building, solidarity, and agency. While volunteering could be seen as a means for community participation in development, findings in this paper signal that the formalization and bureaucratization of grassroots volunteer groups may shift the intended community dynamics and volunteers’ expectations, practices, and identities