Construction and Mediation of the “Other” in Community-Engaged Scholarship: The Importance of Not-Knowing

Authors

  • Tania Kajner

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15402/esj.v1i1.18

Keywords:

community-engaged scholarship, Canadian scholars, conceptualizing community, and decolonial relations.

Abstract

In this paper I share and analyze a subset of findings from a qualitative research study on community-engaged scholarship in Canada. I explore how engaged scholars participating in the study conceptualize community in their engagement experiences. I suggest that in articulating their work, participants depict the contradictory tensions of constructing community as an Other in a way that reflects the dominant European legacy of colonial relations while at the same time leaning towards forms of interaction that are decolonial and challenge this model of colonial relations. This leaning is important and, as I will argue, needs to be nurtured if engagement in Canada is going to escape the pragmatic instrumentalism that marks much of engaged scholarship and if Canadian scholars are going to relate to partners in truly reciprocal and equitable ways.

 

Published

2016-06-27

How to Cite

Kajner, T. (2016). Construction and Mediation of the “Other” in Community-Engaged Scholarship: The Importance of Not-Knowing. Engaged Scholar Journal: Community-Engaged Research, Teaching, and Learning, 1(1). https://doi.org/10.15402/esj.v1i1.18

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