Revisiting Transnational Teaching for Social Justice: Virtual, Real and Hybrid Experiences
In this presentation we revisit our experience of teaching transnationally across Brazil (UFC campus) and the US (UIUC campus) on ongoing struggles of urban poor against global processes of urban dispossession and displacement. Initiated via Skype class discussions some UIUC students and faculty traveled to Fortaleza, Brazil in May 2019 to learn how UFC students, faculty and two favela communities use inclusionary zoning tools to improve access to localized socio-economic and health services. The ongoing and overlapping global health, economic and socio-political crises and associated stay-in-place orders which inhibit travel, have forced us to rethink how to develop experiential learning through transnational exchanges, beyond conventional reading and writing. More specifically, echoing social justice educators like hooks and Spivak, this moment offers a unique opportunity for rethinking how our students at privileged institutions in North and South America learn from their transnational subaltern others. Our talk will reflect on how this moment of multiple crises challenges our project, funded by Lemann Center for Brazilian Studies, to strengthen transnational student literacies of urban exclusions and planning practices.
