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- Convenors:
-
Giovanna Guslini
(Formerly of the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research)
Mary Hallin (University of Nebraska at Omaha)
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- Format:
- Panel
- Location:
- Woburn Room (Room 22)
- Sessions:
- Tuesday 25 June, -, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
Educational exchanges across countries, cultures and disciplines can build a multi-dimensional perspective of anthropology in education. Papers that explore how anthropology can be engaged in concrete actions that develop new social and cultural competences in international exchanges are welcome.
Long Abstract:
This proposed discussion is intended to identify social and cultural skills that facilitate teaching and learning across the globe. The insights from this panel will help to develop a multi-dimensional approach to anthropological education worldwide: cultural exchanges can enhance anthropological education as well as understanding of other cultures and learning from other countries.
Learning and teaching across countries and cultures using multi-directional perspectives can help us achieve a new flexible vision of anthropology in an interconnected world. We need to break traditional structures and boundaries. Collaboration with colleagues across the globe is essential to identify the competences necessary to comprehend and build the world's diverse anthropologies.
Cultural exchanges can expand one's skills such as problem solving, listening, communication, multilingualism, negotiation, team work, critical thinking, creativity, and cultural awareness. Across cultures/countries these competences may have various meanings or may differ on how to achieve these skills. Exchanges can integrate digital and visual modalities with physical learning to increase an international dimension in education.
One can acquire and practice competences throughout life, through formal education at all levels or through informal learning, including families, workplace, local community and institutions. Responses to local and world issues require increased inter-institutional, inter- cultural and inter/trans-disciplinary approaches in international projects and above all new competences that promote vibrant anthropological education worldwide.
Papers that explore topics such as new ways to learn from and about other cultures and countries, facilitating knowledge exchange and developing an international dimension in education, are welcome.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Tuesday 25 June, 2024, -Jarema Drozdowicz (Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań)
Paper short abstract:
The presentation explores the issue of intercultural education and its limitations in the case of teaching practices of Ukrainian children in Polish schools. The paper focuses not only on the structural problems but also on cultural, linguistic, relational, affective, and cognitive dimensions.
Paper long abstract:
The outbreak of the Russo-Ukrainian war in 2014 and its second phase that started in February 2022 revealed the practical implications of the massive influx of refugees and the necessary changes in the educational plain in Poland. The unexpected outcome of the first months of the presence of Ukrainian children in Polish schools and preschools and the sheer scale of the endeavor gives us several indicators of how cultural differences and intercultural exchange of experiences might be incorporated into effective teaching strategies and everyday pedagogical praxis. The key issue in the case of Ukrainian children is, however, the complicated and nuanced aspect of war trauma and trouble in adaptation to the dynamics of current reality.
Having in mind how difficult it can be to work with war traumatized victims, we could highlight in the first step the existing limitations of the state of things in order to proceed to and eventually introduce effective and pragmatic solutions. However, this simple formula faces many obstacles in the public sphere, and the case of Poland is no exception in that regard.
The aim of the paper focuses on that very pragmatic perspective along with the introduction of the notion of pedagogical sensibility. The term is being understood here as a set of skills and mindsets that allows to overcome not just structural limitations but also delivers much-needed intersubjective dialogue with people of different cultures.
Subhadra Channa (Delhi University)
Paper short abstract:
Teaching across cultures can pose unexpected challenges, the same terms may communicate differently in different cultures. A global anthropology needs to both understand cognitive barriers and find teaching methodologies both sensitive to ways of transcending and restructuring contextually.
Paper long abstract:
My personal experiences as a teacher both to a variety of students from my own country and to those based in different countries has given me the realization that there is a significant relation between teaching material and those receiving it. Most students both perceive and absorb information sieved through their own cultural screens of cognition. While it is not impossible or even difficult to negotiate this barrier, it is important to be sensitive to the fact that the same term or the same reading may be comprehended as something quite unlike what it was meant to communicate. I found that while using western texts to teach Indian students I encountered certain problems of understanding and in a similar vein, American students found certain taken for granted social practices or cultural paradigms belonging to South Asia, irrational or plain incomprehensible. While anthropology regularly teaches students material from other cultures, these are presented as belonging to 'those' cultures but not as parameters that the students may use in their context . For a truly global anthropology, students and teachers need to make attempts to transcend these barriers and try to explain 'other' cultural practices and ideas by contextualizing them in their own cognitive maps and then explain the difference not just between specific practices but the philosophy and worldview from where they originate . This would enable the students to re-contextualize these concepts in ways that would make sense to them in ways that they were meant to be understood.
Matthew Wingfield (Stellenbosch University) Mukisa Mujulizi (Global Classroom for Democracy Innovation)
Paper short abstract:
The COVID-19 pandemic led to a widespread disruption in the composition and form of teaching and learning. Reflecting on a globally networked learning opportunity formed during this time, we track the multiplicity of ways in which a range of global power dynamics are (re)produced in these spaces.
Paper long abstract:
Critiques of the composition and impacts of global educational offerings have in recent years become animated by a range of scholars. As Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) seek to ‘internationalise’ their pedagogical offerings, often students from the ‘Global North’ and ‘Global South’ find themselves in globally diverse spaces. This became increasingly prevalent during the COVID-19 pandemic, with similarly-aligned online engagements becoming ubiquitous. This paper is based on an international ‘Global Classroom’ with students from Stellenbosch University (South Africa), University of Toronto (Canada), and University West (Sweden), and others. We argue that while prevalent global power dynamics (in various forms) embedded in internationally collaborative sessions were intentionally engaged, there are a range of dynamics that emerge on different levels that need to be navigated (Boughey & Mckenna, 2021). Our investigation, therefore, takes a multi-level approach in addressing global power dynamics. It is shown that without such an approach, engagements with power dynamics can be largely superficial, further stymying productive and inclusive student engagement. This paper is based on two years of planning and managing the Global Classroom for Democracy Innovation (GCDI) project and is further supported by both qualitative and quantitative feedback from student participants.
Francine Barone (HRAF at Yale University) Ben Kluga (Human Relations Area Files at Yale University) Matthew Longcore (Human Relations Area Files at Yale University) Michael Fischer (University of Kent) Carol R Ember (Human Relations Area Files at Yale University)
Paper short abstract:
The Human Relations Area Files at Yale University is committed to developing dynamic, expertly indexed, and curated online databases and open access resources for the global community. Our teaching materials include eHRAF Workbooks, Explaining Human Culture, and Introducing Cross-Cultural Research.
Paper long abstract:
The Human Relations Area Files at Yale University is a nonprofit organization committed to developing dynamic, expertly indexed, and curated online databases and open access resources. Our mission is to promote understanding of cultural diversity and commonality in the past and present. From colleges, universities, museums, and libraries to cross-cultural researchers within and beyond the social sciences, we believe that a dedication to cultural discovery can be at the forefront of a public-facing anthropology. HRAF produces two membership-supported online databases, eHRAF World Cultures and eHRAF Archaeology. The eHRAF databases feature cultures and traditions around the world with ethnographic and archaeological data subject-indexed at the paragraph level to facilitate rapid retrieval of information. To date, our open access resources for teaching and learning include Teaching eHRAF, Explaining Human Culture, and Introducing Cross-Cultural Research. Explaining Human Culture contains findings from over 1,200 cross-cultural studies and summarizes broad topics such as hunter-gatherers, marriage and family, gender, and sexuality. Introducing Cross-Cultural Research is a short visual course on cross-cultural research methods. The open access repository Teaching eHRAF includes eHRAF Workbooks designed to complement introductory courses in cultural anthropology and archaeology. The workbooks are presented as PowerPoint slideshows that instructors can modify to suit their own teaching styles. Students are taught how to analyze and interpret ethnographic data, looking for similarities and differences to make comparisons across cultures. A newly developed pilot resource, currently named Ethnographic Dimensions, opens up macro-ethnographic exploration with prototype tools and applications based on AI and natural language processing.
Giovanna Guslini (Formerly of the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research)
Paper short abstract:
A narrative book based on real experiences in a Muslim world shows the value of developing social and cultural competencies in global interchanges. This paper examines multidimensional knowledge exchange and new international dimensions in education at all levels and across disciplines.
Paper long abstract:
“In punta di piedi nei Paesi dei minareti” (‘Tiptoeing in the lands of the minarets’) by Giovanna Guslini, Nadia De Biagi, Rosanna Corda, Vita Activa 2022 is an educational tool, an Italian-language publication that was intentionally designed as a collection of attractive, engaging, appealing episodes set in a unitary narrative structure.
It tells about the experiences of life and the encounters of the three authors in Muslim Countries: its anthropological and educational insights were recently discussed during the last IUAES World Congress (Delhi, 14-20 October 2023).
The documentation is based on diaries, notes, letters, interviews, memories, newspapers, and personal photographic archives that produced eighty-one episodes, organised into 14 chapters, drawn in my case from field experiences, and for all three authors from autobiographical accounts of migration spanning a thirty-year period.
In this paper I explore how the book can
1. facilitate cross cultural collaboration across disciplines in the field of citizenship/civic education
2. reveal different perspectives and similarities between very diverse cultures
3. provide opportunities for virtual and real cultural exchanges and international projects involving various countries
4. reach out to a variety of audiences, opening debates and discussions on the main themes of anthropology.
The goal of the book is to show how enriching it can be to experience different cultures, despite the many difficulties that can still be overcome.
Hao-Tzu Ho (National Chengchi University)
Paper short abstract:
This paper discusses the methodology of teaching anthropology to students from diverse disciplinary and cultural backgrounds. It depicts an intersubjective process between students and the instructor, exploring together how anthropology actively engages with ‘real-life’ and large-scale issues.
Paper long abstract:
This paper experiments with the approach of autoethnography to reflect on the positionality and pedagogical rationale of an anthropologist teaching in other departments. The research examines a course focused on the increasing attention to mental health within the context of ‘sustainable development’ offered to undergraduate students from various countries and departments at a university in Taiwan. The fieldwork for this research was conducted over two academic terms, spanning two years, encompassing both during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.
This paper addresses the contemplation of the intellectual as well as pragmatic roles that anthropology plays today. Specifically, it seeks to answer the following puzzles: How to motivate non-anthropological students’ interest in the discipline? How can anthropology engage not only with cross-cultural understandings but also in inter-/trans-disciplinary communications and collaborations? How do anthropological academics respond to the request to devote more to social engagement? Lastly, what are the possibilities and challenges of autoethnography, if it is to be a justified approach in ethnographic fieldwork?
This research finds that students recognise the value of anthropological perspectives and ethnographic methods as long as they realise the connections to their original disciplines or future career. This process relies on students’ own readings and discussions with their peers, guided by the course instructor. To document and analyse the process, autoethnography is privileged for obtaining first-hand data. However, the approach is limited by the ethnographer’s level of self-awareness and the ability to grasp how a single case illuminates the understanding of the wider society.
Wai Man Tang
Paper short abstract:
Formal schooling in Hong Kong is regimented and standardized. Since 2018, I have launched an intercultural sports project that teaches the South Asian sport kabaddi. This paper discusses the potentialities and challenges of cultivating interculturality among the participants in the project.
Paper long abstract:
Following the legacy of colonialism, formal schooling in Hong Kong is highly regimented and standardized. It suppresses dialogue and collaboration. Since 2018, I have launched an intercultural sports program that collaborates with local secondary schools to teach students a South Asian sport, kabaddi. Kabaddi used to be a tagging childhood game popular in South Asia but has evolved into a professional, international sport in the last three decades. This paper discusses how this project cultivated a sense of interculturality among participants, including coaches and players from different cultural backgrounds, by connecting them to cultural dialogues involving knowledge, empathy, and critical thinking. In the process, they contributed their creativity and resources to negotiate the representations and practices of the sport, which decolonized the curriculum in formal education to a certain extent. Yet, this paper also addresses the challenges when implementing this project, such as the lack of institutional support and the pervasiveness of athlete’s mentality – overconforming to the norms of the sport ethic, namely dedication to the sport, accepting risks and pain, and striving for distinction. As some participants found the interculturality embedded in the project incompatible with their athlete’s mentality, they decided to quit. Their decision raises a broader question, namely the feasibility and sustainability of conducting intercultural and community-building projects with the current political situation in Hong Kong.
Man Shahu (Tribhuvan Unversity, Nepal)
Paper short abstract:
This paper explores the difficult, but possible exchange of socio- cultural competences between different cultures in the same country. The social learning process is possible through instruction, imitation, sharing, interaction and observation within the limitation of cultural boundaries.
Paper long abstract:
My presentation will explore the difficult, but possible exchange of socio- cultural competences between different cultures in the same country: the Hunter-gatherer Raute’s of Nepal, the dominant culture, and its modern education. It investigates the practices of knowledge transmission among Raute children and suggests how to build a bi-dimensional (or multi- dimensional) anthropological perspective in education. The ethno-ecological knowledge could be possible exchange between nomadic Raute and sedentary groups around the world. The paper investigates the trends and practices of knowledge transmission, sharing, and acquisition among Raute children regarding hunting, gathering, carving, and trading. Within the confines of their culture, Raute children learn in multiple ways, including imitation, observation, and play. Social learning encompasses a broad range of practices, such as peer sharing, interaction, communication, cooperation, and facilitation. Three types of social learning have been analyzed: first, vertical learning (from parents to children) where knowledge is directly shared and nurtured; Raute children have an inherent adaptability that enables them to acquire knowledge and skills from their parents. This lineage-based learning process fosters a close association between children and their parents. Second, horizontal learning (peer-to-peer) occurs through play and intensive interactions with other children of the same generation. Third, oblique social learning involves Raute children learning through imitation and instruction from non-parental members or other adults. The knowledge transformation of Raute locally embedded which could be exchange with other dominant groups for livelihood strategies and overcome from social problems.
Mary Hallin (University of Nebraska at Omaha)
Paper short abstract:
Multi-directional knowledge exchange and interdisciplinary collaborations can address health emergencies. What skills are needed to develop local/international teams? How do we build interdisciplinary teams? This paper addresses benefits and ways to develop multi-dimensional knowledge exchanges.
Paper long abstract:
The initial response to epidemics such as the West Africa Ebola epidemic tended to have a biomedical focus with little consideration of nonmedical personnel and local knowledge practices. The flow of information tended to be top down and one directional, from the West to the local communities, rather than bi-directional exchange of knowledge. The one directional flow of information marginalizes local communities and the knowledge they can provide. Furthermore, involvement of anthropologists, who could help navigate the local cultures, was minimized at the beginning. Lack of understanding the “norms” and value of the “other” discipline may inhibit interdisciplinary knowledge exchange. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we faced some of the same issues encountered during the Ebola epidemics. Yet, advances in information technology enabled international webinars on COVID-19, thus facilitating global knowledge exchange and broadening the boundaries of anthropological education. This paper examines the following: 1)the cultural skills and potential ways to facilitate multi-directional knowledge exchange to address health emergencies; 2) the potential benefits of multi-directional knowledge exchange to address a health issue; 3) the development and use of interdisciplinary teams to address health emergencies; and 4) the use of technology to facilitate global knowledge exchange. Collaborating with local communities and utilizing interdisciplinary teams may result in more effective and culturally sensitive interventions to health emergencies. Identifying cultural competencies/skills that facilitate learning about other cultures and global knowledge exchange are key to developing successful international collaborations.