Abstract
This study aims to demonstrate processes by which Going Glocal, a Global Citizenship educational program based on Postcolonial Theory, can challenge social representation of the African Other among participating students. Postcolonial Theory argues that the colonial history of countries directly affects the current state of previously colonized countries and contemporary relations between people from Europe and Africa. Critical Whiteness Theory is concerned with the privileged position of a white self, for whom these privileges usually do not become tangible. 15 university college students traveled to Namibia as part of 2012 Going Glocal project and semi-structured interviews were conducted with them directly after they came back, as well as focus groups at the very beginning and end of the program. Two students with opposite socio-economic and ethnical backgrounds were selected for this case study. Their responses were interpreted using Social Representations Theory as a theoretical framework, to reveal the divergent positioning the interviewees took, and were analyzed according to Postcolonial and Critical Whiteness Theory.
Highlights
A person‟s perspective into the world is always bound to a certain identity and their position(ing) in the world (Park, 2011)
E.g. representations concerning Africa as a dark, homogenous block of violence, as Europe‟s fundamental „other‟, which are ingrained in Western society (Dogra, 2012; Park, 2009, 2011a)
Thought processes need to get initiated to critically evaluate one‟s socio-economic privileges, how these are related to a European colonial history and how during colonial times the foundation was laid for the contemporary asymmetrical global institutional order
Summary
A person‟s perspective into the world is always bound to a certain identity and their position(ing) in the world (Park, 2011). Identity transformation processes have to get initiated to gain global outlook. In order to develop such outlook, socio-economic, historical and political knowledge has to be provided, but this has to take place in a setting which gives space to question and re-evaluate one‟s position in the world. This means that an individual brought up within a culturally monolithic environment, within a western society, has to learn to deconstruct and challenge Western notions about „the rest of the world‟. Thought processes need to get initiated to critically evaluate one‟s socio-economic privileges, how these are related to a European colonial history and how during colonial times the foundation was laid for the contemporary asymmetrical global institutional order
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