Singleton and Linton (2006) learned through facilitating conversations about race, that participants benefitted from basic guidelines for their engagement.\u00a0 The EIESL project has adapted Singleton and Linton\u2019s community norms to support dialogue around international engagement and service-learning.\u00a0 Following these authors, EIESL maintains that there are four purposes to establishing community norms with a group:<\/p>\n
EIESL dialogues and workshops establish the following community norms:<\/p>\n
First and foremost, speaking your truth acknowledges that we are all teachers and learners. Each of us has a unique background and set of experiences that has shaped our perspectives on how we see and understand the world.\u00a0 The community norm of Speak Your Truth is an invitation to tell your story.\u00a0 This means that we speak from our own<\/em> personal experience.\u00a0 We offer to others what is ours to share.\u00a0 We avoid broad generalizations or claims that everyone from a particular culture shares a particular perspective.\u00a0 This acknowledges that personal and cultural identities are multiple, complex and ever-changing.\u00a0 Speak your truth also means that we ought to share only what we feel comfortable sharing.\u00a0 It is important to know your own personal boundaries.\u00a0 Furthermore, there is no expectation that you must<\/em> speak.\u00a0 Speaking is an invitation and not a requirement.\u00a0 If you choose to speak, the EIESL community will listen.<\/p>\n EIESL assumes a reflective, rather than a directive approach to ethics.\u00a0 Asserting that ethics is messy means that there is no single blueprint for what is right, good, just or moral.\u00a0 As a community we embrace the complexities of lived experience.\u00a0 EIESL devises workshops in which participants can discuss and gain a more critical understanding of ethical issues by gathering multiple perspectives.\u00a0 This requires that participants are willing to consider approaches and perspectives that may not be their own.\u00a0 Rather than rejecting or contesting a different belief system, EIESL suggests that difference offers an opportunity to critically reflect on one\u2019s own views. This community norm is an invitation to reflect on our own assumptions, convictions and actions, and not take them for granted.<\/p>\n Normative principles are guideposts, yet in the end, there are no \u201cbest practices\u201d that can tell us definitively how to act.\u00a0 In every decision we are weighing out circumstances, considering who is involved, what the costs and benefits might be, and we mobilize what we believe to be right into the decisions and actions that we take in any given moment.\u00a0\u00a0Hoggett, Mayo, and Miller (2009) remind us that because the work of global citizens often happens in the contested space between the state and civil society, and because of conflicting values in civil society, there is no certain, risk-free or unambiguous terrain on which one\u2019s principles can be put to work.\u00a0 Sooner or later we must act, and these actions take place in a world that is inherently fraught with ethical dilemmas. \u201cIn a dilemmatic world, in such ambiguous settings it may be tempting to retreat into a world of certainty, one where principles become a rigid dogma\u201d (Hoggett, Mayo & Miller, 2009, 30). Without a single blueprint for action, the best we can do is to proceed thoughtfully and carefully.\u00a0 \u201cIn such situations moral philosophers such as Williams (1973, 1981) suggest that all we can do is \u2018act for the best\u2019.\u201d Dr. James Orbinski, former president of M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res, says that we can aim only to be \u2018decent\u2019, and to create \u2018the space to be human’ (Orbinski, 2008)<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n EIESL promotes continuous and evolving personal self-reflection. We encourage participants to pause from looking out into the world at the social problems we hope to mitigate through our international service and engagement, and turn our gaze inward.\u00a0 We prompt participants to consider such questions as:\u00a0 Who am I in relation to those that I serve? What do my multiple identities (for example: race, class, gender, ability, sexual orientation, for example) have to do with this relationship?\u00a0 Am I engaging in a community that is my own, or is not my own?\u00a0 How does this impact my international work? These are ongoing and deeply personal questions without concrete answers.\u00a0 Expecting and accepting lack of closure is about embracing the limited answers to the complex issues in international service, and supporting our community members through their journey in pursuing human rights, social and environmental justice and a just and equitable global society.<\/p>\n Hoggett, P., Mayo, M. & Miller, C. (2009). The dilemmas of development work: Ethical challenges in regeneration<\/em>. Bristol: Policy Press.<\/p>\n Orbinski, James. Public Address. \u201cThe Space to be Human\u201d. Terry Talk Series. November 7th<\/sup>, 2008. Chan Centre for the Performing Arts. University of British Columbia.<\/p>\n Singleton, G.E. & Linton, C. (2006). Courageous conversations about race: A field guide for achieving equity in schools. <\/em>Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.<\/p>\nEthics is Messy<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Act for the Best<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Expect and Accept Lack of Closure <\/strong><\/h3>\n
References:<\/strong><\/p>\n