20th Annual Winter Institute - Pre-Institute Workshop

What is Responsible Travel? The Ethics of Experiential Education Programming in Historically Marginalized Communities

This workshop provides language and tools for effectively assessing and communicating cross-cultural programming with outsiders. Based on Where There Be Dragons 30+ years of operating in remote parts of Asia, Africa, and Latin America, we share a framework for ethical community engagement practices that include assessment tools, checklists, and frameworks that can be shared with faculty, administrators, and students alike. This workshop is built from the disciplines of cultural anthropology and community engaged learning models to foster best practices in this highly complex and contested educational landscape. 

Topics of identity, power, privilege, social justice, reciprocity, and culture feature in this timely and dynamic exchange. Participants should expect to be facilitated through Theater of the Oppressed inspired activities, debates and conversations around service learning, community engagement, and the impacts of travel. This workshop will be particularly valuable for educators who guide students into communities that have been historically marginalized throughout the world. This workshop tackles one of the most complex debates in cross-cultural experiential impact. What's our impact? And how does our programming service the interests of our hosts? This conversation is often overlooked, or ignored due to how complicated it is, and how difficult it can be for culturally dominant voices to understand and learn from local community hosts. This is the shift from educational tourism to community immersed learning.