Immersive Practices: Dilemmas of Power and Privilege in Community Engagement with Students in a Rural South African Village

Experiencing service learning partnership: A human development perspective of community members

“…It has been one of the long-standing criticisms of service–learning field that the complexities and tensions of service–learning partnerships largely contribute to the marginalisation and lack of community members’ voices and experiences in service–learning literature and practice. Although much has been done over the past few decades to understand communities’ perspectives of service–learning partnerships (Agard et al, 2019; Machimana et al, 2018; Williams and Nunn, 2016), to date, and particularly in South Africa, the question of whether community members participate and benefit on an equal footing with their counterpart in service–learning partnerships continues to surface. For example, Davis et al (2019: 147–148) argue: If our goal is to strive toward a more equitable exchange of information and co-creation of knowledge, there must first be an assumption that all stakeholders – students, faculty, universities, and community partners – are equally valued and speaking a common language.…”