Abstract
This article examines the experience of six participants in the Maritimes-Guatemala Breaking the Silence Network (BTS) delegation program. Human rights education is central to this program that operates between Canada and Guatemala. Key findings from this research include participants’ rethinking of their own power and privilege upon returning to Canada and making connections with the struggle of Indigenous peoples in both countries. Another finding concerns how specific communal aspects of the BTS delegation (communitas) lead to social transformation and the development of solidarity relationships that are transformative to all. The research affirms the need for experiential learning experiences which use transformative learning approaches to support human rights and social change.
Highlights
There is a general skepticism about development tourism, as writer Robert Chambers (1979) calls it, drawing attention to the western development professional who tours development sites looking for new and exciting experiences
Like Buechner et al (2020), we see the communal aspects, communitas, of transformation as key to this social change. Those such as Hoggan (2016) and Taylor (2008) tend to draw on Freire as the inspiration for social transformation, we look to the women working in this tradition, namely Shauna Butterwick, Patricia Hill Collins, Angela Miles, Darlene
This research does not focus on the experience of Guatemalan human rights defenders, but rather on the transformative experience for the oppressor: unless there is a clear buy-in by the privileged as beneficial, dominant groups will not be willing to give up their power (Brigham, 2013)
Summary
There is a general skepticism about development tourism, as writer Robert Chambers (1979) calls it, drawing attention to the western development professional who tours development sites looking for new and exciting experiences. The purpose of this article is to better understand the transformative learning experiences of six participants in the Maritimes-Guatemala Breaking the Silence Network human rights delegations. From 1954 to 1996, Guatemala was the site of an Internal Armed Conflict between the Guatemalan army and civil patrols and leftist guerrillas. The Commission for Historical Clarification estimates that in total 200,000 people were killed and 40,000 people forcibly disappeared during the 36-year Internal Armed Conflict (Drouin and Molina, 2011). There were over 669 massacres throughout the country (where five people or more were killed), including the elderly and small children; of those, 626 of the massacres were committed by the Guatemalan army (Drouin).
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