[Abstract]
Considering that one of the core tasks of academia is to provide social critique and reflection, universities have an undeniable role to formulate the contours of a more inclusive academia in contrast to visible and normalised structures of exclusion. Translating such ambitions into transformative practices seems to be easier said than done. Academics need mutual inspiration and exchange of thoughts and practices to reflect on their actions and their own knowledge productions.
The authors in this book mirror the challenges and achievements of academics and practitioners in three national contexts, which could serve as a foundation for academia to move towards dismantling elitist and privileged-based assumptions, and formulating new forms of knowledge production and institutional policies, inside and outside academia. The book aims to help create a more inclusive society in which academics, students and practitioners can engage, learn and transform structures of inequality, exclusion and disconnection where it seems to have the biggest impact.
Below you will find the introduction, written by the editors Maurice Crul, Liezl Dick, Halleh Ghorashi & Abel Valenzuele Jr.
Source: Smets, P., B. Reitsma, H. Ghorashi (2020) Community Servive Learning and the issue of power: University Students' engagement with disadvantaged neighbourhoods in Amsterdam. In: Crul, M., L. Dick, H. Ghorashi & A. Valenzuela Jr. (2020) Scholarly engagement and decolonisation: Views from South Africa, The Netherlands and the United States. Stellenbosch: African Sun Media. pp. 277-299.
The full publication can be purchased via [this link].