Richard Slimbach

The Fate of Civilization and the Future of Education Abroad: From Doorstep to Planet

Richard Slimbach Azusa Pacific University

March 21, 2012 | Denver, Colorado Eighth Annual Conference

1 The Fate of Civilization and the Future of Education Abroad: The Forum on Education Abroad is pleased to share the following paper, which serves as the basis of Richard Lessons from a Kentucky Farmer Slimbach’s opening plenary speech at the Forum’s 8th Annual Conference. Richard Slimbach Azusa Pacific University In his paper and plenary speech, Slimbach proposes that: In 1964 Wendell Berry was living a young writer’s here?” (1987, p. 146). He soon realized that only “Modern urban civilization faces its own dire version of dream. He could point to two degrees from the by exercising a universal appreciation for life could the age-old “to be or not to be” question. Although its University of Kentucky, a Stegner Fellowship in the answers be found. He resolved that care would economic performance has been nothing short of stun- Creative Writing to teach at Stanford University, replace methodology, morality would replace ning, the negative social and ecological effects of 150 a year in Italy on a Guggenheim Fellowship, and technology, and local knowledge would replace years of industrialization have become impossible to a cushy teaching position at New York University. specialist exper- ignore. This presents global educators today with a rare Then, after only two years at NYU, Berry accepted tise and chemical opportunity and responsibility: to mediate the question a job offer from the University of Kentucky and fertilizers. His of whether we can - or even should - save industrial civi- decided to leave New York City for his native place necessary relation lization. Taking this charge seriously will require that we in rural Kentucky. Friends and academic mentors to the land would re-consider the ultimate purposes of a global education did their best to dissuade him, warning that such directly subvert as the necessary first step for re-imagining global learning a move would most certainly result in a slow the basic prem- in an era of “peak everything.” Using Kentucky farmer and but certain intellectual death. Wild, rural places ise of corporate essayist Wendell Berry as dialogue partner, we propose were judged as irrelevant and archaic—“off the agribusiness—the an integrated, “doorstep-to-planet” pedagogy that tran- map” as far as the world’s economic and cultural efficient exploita- scends the false choice to either “stay at home” or “study wealth was concerned. The action was in urban tion of land and abroad.” A local-to-global model of global learning, it’s centers like New York, Los Angeles, and Boston. those who work suggested, can enable students to embrace one of the Undeterred, within a year Berry purchased a small the land for the highest possible production and great tasks of our time: discerning what to cherish and hillside farm that lay within a four-mile radius of profit. In the years to follow, industrial agriculture what to challenge within the “modern way of life” as a where seven generations of his family had lived. would become for Berry a defining paradigm for precondition to making worthy homes in the world.” Time was divided between restoring the over- understanding the essential malady in modern grown farm—fencing, cutting firewood, forking societies. manure, killing hogs, and housing tobacco—and teaching college English at the University of Berry defies both convention and easy categori- Kentucky in Lexington. zation as left, right or center. Depending on how you read him, he’s a bit of a traditionalist, pacifist, Wendell Berry had come home to answer a single socialist, communitarian, or anarchist. He marches question: What must a person do to make a home under no banner and stands for nothing larger in the world? Wild creatures belong to their place (or smaller) than his plot of land in Port Royal, by nature, but human economy is something Kentucky. He scorns both big government (social- else: it must be built within a place, and doing ism) and big business (corporate capitalism) as so requires time, familiarity, love, and restraint. systemic symptoms of the greed, violence, and As Berry took to farming that exhausted parcel placelessness that defines humankind’s “deadly of land, he was confronted by three critical ques- illness.” Berry lives without a television, computer, tions: “What is here? What will nature permit us fast food, or any recreational vehicles. He heats to do here? and What will nature help us to do his house using a wood-burning stove with dead

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wood collected from his own forest. Behind his make on everything from location and length of “Prediction is very difficult, especially about the Three Alternative Scenarios house is the garden where he and Tanya—wife term to subject matter focus and level of on-field future.” If history teaches us anything it is that of 55 years—grow much of their own food. Berry immersion are all ultimately referenced to some the world’s greatest challenges are only minimally 1. “The end is near”: The collapse of civilization owns a tractor, but plows his land with a team of idea of the type of student and world we hope to responsive to human inputs, whether in the form as ‘iron cage’ horses that, he says, gives him pleasure. Their two fashion. There is no neutral ground. Even the act of more money or more goodwill. Even Bill Gates children, also farmers, live only a few miles away. of boarding a plane “says” something about our and Warren Buffet don’t wake up each morning Over a century ago, Max Weber famously sense of rights and our relationship to our native assured that their enormous philanthropy will described modern society as an “iron cage.” No less distinguishing is Berry’s literary career. place, the biosphere, and distant lands. One kind automatically create a more desirable future. Moderns, in his view, were trapped within bureau- The 40-plus volumes of poetry, fiction and essays of future is enacted over another kind. Berry There are simply too many factors that affect how cratic systems based purely on depersonalization, he has penned, like the rest of his life, belong to helps us to reconsider, not just how we can assist societies develop. We would like to think that we specialization, rationality, efficiency, and control. the land that he cherishes. All have been writ- students in understanding the world as it is, but can manipulate, and thus master, variables like He predicted that the pattern of social organiza- ten by hand and mostly on a daytime tree-house also the world as it might be. foreign relations, technological innovation, social tion that began during the industrial revolution stand in order to reduce his reliance on electricity communications, and climate change. But thirty- would continue to intensify into the 21st century. derived from local strip-mined coal. Few authors Our discussion, then, ponders the ultimate five years ago, who could have predicted the His prediction has come to pass. Everywhere one write with his clarity, economy, and imagination. purpose (telos) and normative practice of educa- collapse of the Soviet empire, 9/11, the ubiquity of looks a single picture emerges: large concentra- Each idea is part of a comprehensive philosophy tion abroad. It is organized around three stylized personal computers, the social influence of Google tions of people, hierarchically organized, each one of living—one that, like his farm and garden, has scenarios for the year 2050, each representing and Facebook, or the hole in the ozone layer? At performing a discrete set of duties in the hope of emerged from decades of careful cultivation. fundamentally different assumptions about and the blazing rate of change in today’s world, there moving “up,” to a bigger and better position that is something profoundly unknowable about the can be done sitting down. This is not corporation “Decisions we make on everything from location and length of term to subject future—even 10 or 20 years out. It’s like we’re driv- bashing. Indeed, without corporations we would matter focus and level of on-field immersion are all ultimately referenced to ing in a fog, with headlights, wipers and defroster not have the products that we eat and watch, that some idea of the type of student and world we hope to fashion.” on high. No matter what we do, we can only see a we drink and wear, that defend us and transport short distance in front of us. There’s a road before us, and that cool us and warm us. Though his writings reveal a particular disdain for hopes for modern civilization. To signify these us, but to navigate it safely we have to take it slow major political parties, Berry is far from apoliti- differences, we use the “cage” metaphor first and learn to adapt to its twists and turns. But for all their innovations and efficiencies, they cal. His prose regularly confronts bureaucracy, introduced by German political economist Max require that workers adopt roles that effectively biotechnology, imperial wars, and of course, agri- Weber (1958) and later popularized by American If the complexity of modern life renders predic- separate them from their bodies, from their business. Like Jefferson, he envisions the ideal sociologist George Ritzer (1995). The first scenario tion impossible, why outline future scenarios? families and neighbors, and from their natural America as an agrarian republic of localized and symbolizes modern civilization as an “iron cage” Our purpose is simply to prod us, as global communities. The result, predicted Weber, would largely self-sustaining communities. Citizenship is, locked in self-amplifying economic, social, and educators, to think more broadly about how our be to “drive us to despair”—that is, to feel funda- first and foremost, the work of “home-making”— environmental problems spiraling out of control. program- and pedagogy-related decisions relate to mentally alienated and “homeless” in relation to the learned and protective stewardship of place. The second scenario regards civilization as a a preferred future vision. Our students also need the world. “velvet cage” where the forces and values driving to recognize that history is a tree of possibilities. What might global educators learn from this the contemporary “globalization” project continue Critical events and human choices are branch Social and economic life was not always organized Kentucky farmer? A great deal, as I hope to show. into the future, ultimately resolving the short-term points defining one of many alternative pathways. this way. Berry reminds us that, not long ago, an Consciously or not, we all live toward some challenges we now face. A third scenario casts Fundamentally different futures might crystal- alternative type of society (what he calls “home preferred vision of the future. Social visions are, in civilization as a “rubber cage”—restraining yet lize from the complex and turbulent state of the economies”) shaped human characters and faiths. turn, supported by particular dispositions, beliefs, reformable through the leavening influence of a planet. Envisioning the kind of future they want is Land, shelter, and food were free. Everything was and behaviors that are acted out in various life globally conscious and ethically engaged citizenry. the first step in a process that leads to decisions shared. Happiness had little to do with accumulat- pursuits, including educational travel. How we and actions that help to shape that future. ing material things. People were joined to, rather imagine a possible world, Berry argues, profoundly I try to approach each scenario with an open than divided from, the land and each other as shapes the way people live their lives. This includes mind, but critically. What I do not do is suggest primary sources of life satisfaction and meaning. the way international educators design and oper- that we can define the future, much less engi- A generous earth provided young people with ate education abroad programs. Decisions we neer it. Danish physicist Niels Bohr once quipped, rich, multisensory experiences: tending animals,

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bucking hay, climbing trees and rocks, and running experience has almost entirely been replaced through pastures and woods. But with the advent by indirect, technology-mediated experience. of modern cities, a rapacious “global industrial Humans are quickly becoming an indoor species, economy” all but obliterated intact “local home as flickering pixels on smart phones and comput- economies.” The essence of Berry’s anguish is ers replace wild places and chance encounters as captured by the tale of two economies depicted in a primary source of pleasure and knowledge. One the table at left. can hardly find a place—dorms? libraries? cafes? public buses?—where people are simply sitting In Berry’s view, the global industrial economy, as still, alone in their thoughts, unplugged from their a mode of existence, is functionally incompat- Smartphone or Facebook page. Stuck within virtual GLOBAL INDUSTRIAL ECONOMY LOCAL HOME ECONOMY ible with life. It is inherently violent, hierarchical, worlds, we gradually lose a sense of awe and exploitative, and unsustainable. Its cities require awareness that unfamiliar peoples and wild places Global scale: “big is better”; life lived ever larger (growth); Human scale: “small is beautiful”; life lived within limits human activity conducted in space (physically absent from (simplicity); human activity anchored in place (bodily the importation of resources and the denuding offer (Louv, 2008). Then, to compensate for the one another) encounters) of the supporting land base. Since the industries losses, we turn to “fun food” (low-fiber, high-fat that support the civilization—coal, oil, natural gas, processed foods), mind-altering substances (weed, Relation to nature: earth as “resources” (storehouse of raw Relation to nature: the earth as gift; all bio-life as sacred and materials) for extraction; impacts to nature externalized precious; everything related to everything else (community auto, arms, chemical, corporate farming—will not alcohol, pills), psychotherapy (to treat anxiety (“cost of production”) of creation) accept their own extinction, it is also irredeemable. and depression), diet programs (to curb obesity), No amount of regulation will stop trawlers from and diversionary entertainment (shopping, raves, Money-centered values: over-production, market Life-centered values: producing for subsistence, overfishing international waters or oil companies gaming, movies). Even junior-year study abroad competitiveness, profit maximization, capital accumulation, interdependence, transcendence, biodiversity, self- ‘progress’ and ‘growth’ (More), speed, upward mobility, organization, belonging, spontaneity, frugality (Enough), from transported ‘black gold’ from Canadian tar is transformed into yet another escape from the technological control spontaneity, gratitude, hope sands to refineries on the Gulf of Mexico. monotony of a fundamentally homeless life.

Progress measured by standard of living (for one’s self, family Progress measured by quality of life (for all human and members, and racial-class group) natural communities) Already, industrialized societies consume food One would think that global educators, of any and energy at levels that are quickly depleting the professional group, would have found a way to Power centralized and monopolized by “military-industrial Power decentralized and broadly distributed through small- planet’s natural capital. The world’s rainforests, escape the iron cage. But how many of us know complex” outside democratic processes scale, democratic communities aquifers, fisheries, and soils are being desolated, where our water comes from and where our as are thousands of animal and plant species. garbage goes? Can we recall ever preparing a single Communities tied to industrial processes shaped by money Communities tied to land shaped by history, memory, and technology, displacement and disconnection, anonymity tradition, durable social ties, stewardship of nature, and Forty percent of U.S. fish species are today threat- meal truly from scratch—that is, from food we’ve and accumulation self-sustaining economic activity ened with extinction, as are a third of plants and raised or grown ourselves? As thoroughly industri- amphibians and twenty percent of birds and alized persons, most of us (myself included) cannot Work as self-owned and self-managed within local Work as salaried employment within corporations normed enterprises; workers in mutually supportive relationships mammals. Ninety eight percent of the old growth build, cannot fix, cannot hunt, cannot cook, cannot on competition, profit making, and mobility; employees offering honest goods or services to communities; intrinsic forests are gone; ninety nine percent of the prai- spin or knit, cannot locate the constellations, and viewed as replaceable cogs in the wheel; economic capital interrelationship between spiritual, social, economic, and abstracted from nature, place, and soul ries are gone; and eighty percent of the rivers cannot identify the trees or the birds that surround natural capital on this planet do not support life anymore. Our us. Riding a bicycle for more than a couple miles Technologies support industrial production and the Technologies as “tools” to support good work and healthy species has deforested, plowed, dredged, drained, can leave us aching for days. Our great grandmoth- concentration of power and control; directed toward profit- family relations within interdependent and sustainable making, utility, efficiency and distraction; justified by cultish communities; limited to those that are clean, inexpensive, dammed, bulldozed, or paved over one-half to ers and grandfathers could do most of these things, “faith in the future”; detached from culture and nature easily repaired, and preserving of nature and culture one-third of the land surface of the earth. Until easily. We cannot, and for one simple reason: we Higher education as job training for upward mobility, Higher education as whole-person formation for home- wealth is no longer measured by our ability to don’t have to. We have other people to build and enabling persons to further their private interests (i.e. to making, enabling persons to establish their standing in destroy and consume non-renewable resources, clean our homes, mow our lawns, wash our car, earn and consume more) society through responsible living the “iron cage” will continue to capture the earth’s prepare our meals, and clean our clothes. And we Global cultures commoditized, commercialized, and Global cultures as local/regional repositories of humanity’s bounty and subject it to relentless control. have other things, like high-polluting cars, to help consumed as tourist “attraction” collective wisdom and virtue us get around. Then, to compensate for the lack of Psychological and spiritual landscapes are physical activity in our normal lifestyle, we take out The future lies with LOIS: “Local Ownership and Import The future lies with TINA: “There Is No Alternative” also encaged. For most of our students, direct a gym membership. Go figure. Substitution”

Table 1: Tale of two economies 6 7 Richard Slimbach

Many other lucid thinkers have joined Berry in course? All we can do is hope that somehow we’ll travel for any purpose would become uncommon. burgeoning slums. Neither domicile is “embed- predicting dire long-term consequences of our resolve our predicament, somehow we’ll pull Residents would once again “become native to ded in the ecological realities of its surrounding way of life.1 They often speak of a “perfect storm” through the storm, somehow we’ll get from here their places” (Jackson, 1994). landscape.” Residents occupy paved-over environ- of peak population, peak urbanization, peak oil, to there. Dying civilizations, it’s been said, often ments like these out of necessity. Simply put, it’s peak nature, peak climate, and peak economic prefer hope to truth; it makes life easier to bear. 2 Given the prospect of civilizational breakdown, if not where the jobs are—jobs that take them away growth. It is certainly not a pretty picture. If United collapse, it’s easy to see why Berry views much of from natural settings to sell street wares, mow Nations estimates hold, two billion more people Berry urges us to awake from our fatalistic stupor. modern globetrotting as a frivolous diversion from lawns, flip burgers, and occupy office cubicles. will be added to the current (2011) global popu- Industrial civilization, he insists, is not inevi- the serious business of homemaking. To the extent lation of 7 billion by 2050. Modern cities, already table. Society has elected to create an inherently that it merely gratifies faulty egos looking for easy Equally unclear is what “secession” from indus- housing half the planet, will morph into congested destructive system, and it is up to society to either escape and adventure, he would ask: why bother? trial culture might actually look like. Would megacities rimmed by hellish new slums. At the dismantle or escape it. “The great obstacle,” I sometimes imagine a group of socially conscious graduates be encouraged to join the Amish in same time, the end of cheap, abundant oil comes says Berry, “is simply this: the conviction that we twenty-somethings visiting Wendell at his Kentucky Lancaster County? Become hunting-and-gathering homestead. They catch up with him in the cornfield, “freegans” in downtown Portland? Take up long- “Given the prospect of civilizational breakdown, if not collapse, it’s easy introduce themselves, and proceed to ask him how term residence in an eco-village somewhere in to see why Berry views much of modern globetrotting as a frivolous diversion best to serve the world. Berry turns to them and Kerala or West Africa? Unfortunately, there are from the serious business of homemaking.” gently but firmly counsels them to stay home. precious few places left on earth that have with- stood the economic, technological, and social to an end, eroding the energy basis of the indus- cannot change because we are dependent on I will wait here in the fields forces of industrialism. One would have to venture trial system, and potentially sending economies what is wrong” (1990, p. 201). Born into institu- to see how well the rain into truly remote places like the northern forests tumbling around the world. The earth contin- tional captivity, we can hardly see the bars that brings on the grass. and tundra, the rainforest cores of the Congo or ues its warming pattern, disrupting agricultural confine and control us, that weaken our humanity. In the labor of the fields Amazon basins, or the outback deserts in Australia production and destabilizing the geo-political envi- Instead of staging a break, we simply pad our cells, longer than a man’s life and Africa. ronment. The global economic system reels with make ourselves as comfortable as possible. I am at home. Don’t come with me. widespread unemployment and stagnant wages, You stay home too. (1987, p. 199) 2. “Don’t worry, be happy”: The expansion of even as the widening income gaps between rich Our way of life may have already passed beyond civilization as ‘velvet cage’ and poor people incite social unrest and politi- the point where we can expect any sort of volun- Stay home. Find the practical means and strength cal upheaval. Any one of these stresses is cause tary transformation. Where might that leave us? of spirit to mobilize “a quiet secession.” Withdraw Naturally, folk like Wendell Berry are routinely for serious concern. Combined synergistically on Scientist Wes Jackson, a personal friend of Berry’s legitimacy from imperial institutions and agendas. dismissed as nostalgic romantics or worse, as a global scale, they are potentially catastrophic. and president of The Land Institute in Kansas, Remove yourself from the system that is exploit- alarmist cranks. Skeptics like Thomas Friedman In a worst-case scenario, lethal biochemical and predicts that sometime near the end of this ing you and your homeland. Learn to make a true (2005, 2009) and Walter Truett Anderson (2001) nuclear weapons are put in the hands of enraged century cities will be forced to dramatically down- home in the world (1994, p. 17-18). tend to see no peril in the basic operating system groups, delivering a fatal body blow to the global size. In the midst of societal collapse, hundreds of the modern industrial economy. Weber’s “iron order. Our modern way of life is brought to the of thousands of families would resettle the vast, For some of us, a radically downsized and re-local- cage” is for them a “velvet cage”—comfortable, brink of collapse. previously emptied out, areas of rural America to ized world might actually be a preferable future. elegant, and secure, with endless opportunity and systematically re-build self-reliant and intensely Nevertheless, at this point in history it hardly looks consumer choice. The problems faced by modern C. Wright Mills once described “fate” as that local “home economies.” A network of small-scale probable. To make this vision a reality, virtually civilization aren’t terribly serious. The road in front which happens when innumerable people make villages surrounded by prairie farms would sustain all the economic, social, and political systems of of us—beyond the fog—is straight and clear. A innumerable small decisions about matters that a new kind of eco-communal life where villagers the 21st century would need to undergo massive combination of free markets, modern science and have a collective, cumulative effect that nobody spend at least part of their days growing food and restructuring. Modern life is organized in ways that sophisticated technologies will enable humanity to intended. Given the level of social complexity in raising animals within unfenced landscapes. Most have little in common with family farms or Kansas cut carbon emissions to sustainable levels, eradi- today’s world, it’s understandable that many of goods and services would be produced nearby, prairies. For hundreds of millions of people, cate extreme poverty, restore the earth’s natural us experience civilization as a runaway train with greatly reducing the need to travel elsewhere. “home” is a small apartment or condo in a world systems, and promote the fullest development nobody at the controls. After all, what can any In fact, in stark contrast to the fiesta of mobility city like Tokyo or London. For another billion it’s of humankind. Given the right incentives, human of us do to slow the train, much less redirect its that marks the current global age, long-distance a one or two room shack in one of the world’s

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beings are smart enough to solve just about any foresees biochemists creating “enhanced” (more many nature-deficient folk sit for too long trans- the most ubiquitous of non-places demand only problem that comes their way. intelligent, athletic, and attractive) persons, and fixed in front of computer screens. But stop and our temporary presence and fleeting involvement. eventually making reverse aging (read: immortal- consider why. Much of the collective knowledge of To support their buoyant optimism, velvet cagers ity) a reality, albeit for a price. humankind is now instantly accessible to anyone International educators are hardly immune to rehearse how, over the last 100 years, western with a laptop and Internet connection.3 these transformations. Traveling the globe, we capitalist democracies have weathered two world What we can expect, then, is a network society may rarely leave the world of non-places. Consider wars and an arms race with the Soviet Union. They and shopper’s heaven, inhabited by “enhanced” In the velvet cage scenario, industrial civilization a typical scenario: From a university or company have come out of economic depression wealthier human beings and powered by alternative energy. is not just saved—it is fundamentally re-invented. office we drive to an international airport, flyto and more powerful than ever, absorbing count- That’s pretty heady stuff. A public relations execu- Modern megacities become the command posts another international airport somewhere in the less immigrants in the process. In short, western tive for AT&T captured the ultimate meaning for a brave new bio-information world economy world, and proceed to take a taxi or other private civilization has proven to be the most ingenious behind these transformations when he frankly animated by flows of intelligence, innovation, vehicle to a city office building. There we conduct and resilient human order in history. Its expansion stated: “It makes geography… [and] where you are and information. For globalists, the digital era meetings with other urban, Western educated, (“globalization”) thus represents an incontrovert- in the world irrelevant.” heralds a new “golden age” of efficiency and English-speaking, and globally networked ible truth and the best of all possible worlds—one constant connectivity enabled by low-earth-orbit colleagues or partners. Our on-the-ground experi- that will eventually bring opportunity and prosper- Irrelevant. Yes, and in the view of most globalists, satellites, wearable computer networks, and ence typically operates according to the dictates of ity to everyone, everywhere. There may be some also inevitable. The die is cast, they insist, and place-embedded intelligence. New “smart” cities our organizational and professional culture, rather formidable challenges in the present, but the long- there is no “going back to nature.” Or even “local.” are like computers in open air, retrofitted in ways than by terms set by local customs or economic term benefits of a globalized world far outweigh The future is irrevocably urban, automated, and that blur the line between inhabitable space and conditions. Especially within so-called “third any negative impacts. global. Local conditions and national borders no cyberspace. In the process, hundreds of millions world” destinations, few of us will voluntarily longer have any real choice but to become porous of earthlings are freed from dependence on site- subject ourselves to the harsh conditions of the Common to most globalists is an unwavering economically and technologically. Cultures or specific information and face-to-face encounters. majority society. Instead, we adopt a field lifestyle faith that new technologies will ultimately repair organizations that refuse to “get on board” and Wireless networks enable us to search informa- strikingly similar to that of home, with the same that which our old industrial technologies have “play by the rules” of the new, hyper-connected tion, meet new friends, complete college classes, amenities and creature comforts—everything damaged. The Internet, personal computers, and global platform do more than lose out on benefits discuss any conceivable subject, do our bank- from personal transport and Wi-Fi enabled hotel fiber optic cable are only Act One in a revolution and opportunities; they ultimately fail. ing, entertain ourselves, and purchase almost rooms to upscale restaurants and fitness centers. that will ultimately ‘flatten’ the economic- play anything—all over a Smartphone. Then, when a few days of business is done, it’s ing field and create a global “network society” In any case, why would anyone want to put civi- back into the cab, off to the airport, and onto a (Castells, 2009). Then, in Act Two, limitless infor- lization’s achievements ‘in reverse’? More people Berry often speaks ofplace as an organic “member- flight home. Having never left the socio-cultural mation and technological innovation creates what than ever before can live under the protection of ship” of persons within a complex historical and bubble, we could literally have been anywhere in Bill Gates describes in his book The Road Ahead as legal rights and civil liberties. Transnational enter- cultural context. One of the most far-reaching the world, and nowhere in particular (Hunter & a “friction-free capitalism.” “All the goods in the prises like Walmart and Nestlé create employment developments in advanced capitalist societies is Gates, 2002). world will be available for you to examine from for millions of people, raising incomes and enrich- the emergence of spaces that concern themselves your wallet PC,” he exults. “It will be a shopper’s ing lives worldwide. Global capital markets make with none of these things. They are essentially This profiles a certain type of cosmopolitan—the heaven.” In this paradise of consumption, popu- fabulous product choices available to the masses. non-places, and an ever-increasing proportion of bourgeois cosmopolitan. Their outlook is sophis- lation and wealth continues to increase, even as Advanced transportation and telecommunica- our lives are spent in them (Auge, 1995). ticated, urbane and well travelled, with spans of energy alternatives like solar and nuclear drop tions technologies enable peoples far and wide to responsibility that encompass the world. But in carbon emissions to zero (Gates, 2009). share their lifestyles and cultural achievements in Think about it: when we’re not online, where are the surreal world created through globalization, ways that enrich everyone. Politically, cyber-world we? We’re on freeways or in petrol stations, inside traveled bodies do not necessarily yield traveled There’s even an Act Three. Renowned inventor Ray enables online global communities to organize transit lounges and mega-malls, working in our minds. Global citizenship, for all its hype, easily Kurzweil (2006) envisions “GRIN technologies”— themselves across international borders without offices or in a wireless café, eating in fast-food takes on a distinctly parochial and insular charac- genetics, robotics, information technology and formal leaders and hierarchal organizational struc- joints and kicking back in front of a flat screen. Our ter, suppressing any ambivalence we might feel nanotechnology—irreversibly transforming human tures. (Can one even imagine the popular uprisings worlds have become increasingly automated and about the increasingly uniform and artificial world existence as we know it. With the capacity to in the Middle East and North Africa apart from the anonymous, ahistorical and pseudo-social. Even we are helping to create. Few international educa- genetically program all forms of bio-life, Kurzweil cell phone, Facebook, and YouTube?) Granted, too tors would declare globalization an unqualified

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good. Nevertheless, we are its willing agents, In Berry’s mind, efforts to “think globally” or 3. “Small is beautiful”: The re-shaping of civilization as ‘rubber cage’ convinced that our way of life and educational “make poverty history” are not just futile, but products are good, even if they help transform positively dangerous. “You can’t think about what The “iron cage” and “velvet cage” scenarios would appear to leave us with two incommensurable and irrec- “locality” and “place” into abstract, provisional, you don’t know, and nobody knows this planet,” oncilable visions of the future, requiring us to ultimately choose what kind of world we want. and even virtual realities. he contends. “The people who think globally do so abstractly and statistically, by reducing the globe We can have ice caps and polar bears, or we can have automobiles. We can have dams or we can We thus find ourselves caught between two worlds. to quantities” (Berry, 1991). He admonishes the have salmon. We can have irrigated wine from Mendocino and Sonoma counties, or we can have On the one hand we advocate for immersed and “easy lovers and forgivers of mankind”—those the Russian and Eel Rivers. We can have oil from beneath the oceans, or we can have whales. immediate experiences of “place” within cross- who love everyone equally and no one specially— We can have cardboard boxes or we can have living forests. We can have computers and cancer cultural settings as indispensable to learning to see to stay put and work to preserve their small corner clusters from the manufacture of those computers, or we can have neither. We can have electric- things as others do. On the other hand we partici- of creation. Responsibility to the world, like char- ity and a world devastated by mining, or we can have neither… We can have civilization… or we pate in a historical process that favors what is new, ity, must begin at home. can have a multiplicity of autonomous cultures each uniquely adapted to the land from which fast, and transnational over what is deep-rooted, it springs. We can have cities and all they imply, or we can have a livable planet. We can have slow, and local. The past is dark and stagnant; Ben Feinberg (2002), writing on what students “progress” and history, or we can have sustainability… We can have belongings or we can have the future, thanks to ongoing technological inno- don’t learn abroad, shares a similar sentiment. belonging. (Jensen, 2007, p. 148) vation, is bright and borderless. In a networked Because the “imaginary world of globalized, post- world, unbounded by the old divisions of place, modern capitalism” puts Western students at the one’s identity need no longer be restricted to one’s center of the globe, very few of the approximately But there are those who envision a “third way”—a country of origin. Indeed, our indispensable task is 260,000 U.S. students that study abroad each path beyond industrialism’s doomsayers and to develop an expressly global citizenry—persons year ever move from that center to learn the local cheerleaders. Ironically, Berry enjoys growing who think and act beyond the boundaries of iden- language, form lasting friendships with residents, popularity among a diverse lot of urban-based tity and place (Lewin, 2009). With a critical mass or care for the immediate locale beyond its abil- groups—from Sierra Club conservationists and of such people, we believe that solutions to the ity to gratify. By and large, foreign social worlds small-government libertarians to urban “freegans” world’s most intractable problems can be found. become personal playgrounds in which to freely and faith-based community organizers. They share indulge one’s wanderlust or search out the most the “iron cage” rage against the Machine, and As you might expect, such talk makes “iron cagers” exotic party scenes. “Like children of empire,” yearn for a simpler, slower more natural existence. like Berry bristle. The vaunted claims of “educating writes Tony Ogden (2008), “colonial students have What they are not quite ready to do is abandon global citizens” masks the fact that the benefits of a sense of entitlement, as if the world is theirs for those relatively placeless command points of an internationalized education, like the benefits discovery, if not for the taking. New cultures are modern globalism: the cities. of global trade, accrue to only a very small elite— experienced in just the same way as new commod- people who can afford to gallop around the globe ities are coveted, purchased and owned” (p. 37-8). After all, there is really nowhere else to go. The amassing experience or expressing “solidarity” Not surprisingly, the vast majority of students urban-industrial Juggernaut, they acknowledge, is created or we will have lost the battle for civiliza- with those who can’t afford to go anywhere. return home essentially unchanged. pervasive and comprehensive enough to be largely tion, and the human soul (Lyle, 2008). inescapable. Already, more than half the world is city dwellers, and that number is expected to rise The challenge involved in such an undertaking can to 70 percent by 2050. That means two in three hardly be overstated. Global city-centric capitalism people born in the next 30 years will live in cities. poses huge environmental challenges to natural Yes, the modern city confines and oftentimes resources, waste management, traffic, and air pollu- dehumanizes. But its bars are made of rubber: tion. Already, breathing the air in Bangkok, Ho Chi they can be stretched enough to allow for substan- Minh City, and Manila is equivalent to smoking two tial redesign and ecological management. Cities packs of cigarettes a day. Congestion is so thick can once again be turned into livable and lovable that it can take hours to travel just a few miles. As places, healing the historic opposition between centers of resource consumption and waste produc- things urban and natural. A sane and sustainable tion, cities are primarily responsible for—and urban future can be created—indeed, must be now threatened by—global climate change. And

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as hundreds of developing-world cities continue a quarter-million American students each year events—this year’s recession, next year’s boom. more re-used materials and fewer landfills; more to modernize, the number of cars and trucks is to distant lands. Even with the development and “Top-down” solutions like Masdar City need to be wild animals and fewer pets; more community projected to double by 2040, requiring 35% more deployment of alternative bio-fuels, the era of strategically linked to non-centralized, low-tech farmers and fewer television viewers; more mutual oil than is used today. The health hazards alone are relatively cheap commercial aviation eventu- initiatives working from the “bottom up.” aid and less individualistic competition; more self- dire. Add to this food, water and energy require- ally comes to an end.4 A very small minority of acceptance and less social status-seeking. ments. The expansion of global urban culture will U.S. collegians can still afford conventional study “Rubber cage” transformers are cautiously hope- stress local ecosystems to the brink. abroad. The rest are forced to stay home and ful. They find encouraging signs in a variety of Civilization, as we’ve said, affords us the opportu- travel virtually, assisted by automatic translation: grassroots initiatives spreading across Europe and nity to think the thoughts of Plato and Chomsky, “Velvet cage” globalists, as we’ve seen, trust that North America: New Urbanism, LEED Certified to experience the social worlds of others, to maxi- advanced technologies and new energy efficiencies Language learning, extra spicy: Google Translation Building Standards, Community Supported mize material production, and to live a long life will ultimately save us from collapse and lead us into http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxDRburxwz8 Agriculture, Holistic Medicine, Slow Food, with expanded choices. Who can deny the worth a post-carbon future. For rubber-cage transform- Slow Money, Buy Local, Fair Trade, Freecycle, of such things? At the same time, we must endure ers, no such happy outcome is guaranteed. They Road tripping: Google Maps Freemarket, Independent Media, Community having less time, less peace of mind, less connec- don’t expect the road ahead to be either straight http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTeCqnBuDdU Banks, Re-localization, Smart Growth, Livable tion to place, more pollution, more obesity, more or unobstructed. There will be sharp corners and &feature=relmfu Communities, Eco-villages and Co-housing, unemployment, more crime, more war, and more unexpected junctions. That’s because the underly- New Monasticism, Transition Towns, Socially spiritual barrenness. Naturally, we’d like to have ing causes of our toughest problems require big Responsible Business, Car Sharing, Bike Co-ops, it all—enjoy civilization’s achievements while changes in the existing economic and political New high-tech energy programs and urban DIY Skill-Sharing, Humane Animal Husbandry, and containing its damaging effects. The problem is we order, and big changes tend to provoke staunch re-designs will no doubt alter the way we inhabit Voluntary Simplicity, to name but a few. These are haven’t found a way to do that yet. opposition from those entities with a vested inter- places. But equally certain, at least for transform- mostly urban movements spearheaded by groups est in the status quo (Milanovic, 2007). We can join ers, is that urban societies will be forced to power of people working quietly and often independently the Occupy movement to protest widening income down—to voluntarily and dramatically reduce to radically rethink what a human-scaled, low- The Doorstep and the Planet disparities. We can be one of the 1250 people consumption levels, re-localize their economies, energy, and low-impact mode of life might look handcuffed and hauled away for talking part in the and work towards creating post-carbon cities like. Suddenly the city looks less like a source of “This leaves global educators with Tar Sands Action campaign. We can compost our (Heinberg, 2004). Models of communities resilient problems than an opportunity to fix them. a compelling mission: to create kitchen waste and hang our laundry out to dry. But to a climate change future are already available in we shouldn’t expect any fundamental challenge to places like Christiana in Denmark and various “eco- Many of the students who enroll in our study programs and pedagogies that our economic system to come from those holding towns” built across the UK and Japan. Even Abu and service abroad programs enthusiastically transform modern and rootless the internal levers of power. In light of our relative Dhabi, one of the planet’s largest suppliers of oil, embrace these ideals. Their struggle is not against “residents” into rooted “dwellers.”” powerlessness and economic insecurity, most of us is creating its own Masdar City—meant to be the “civilization,” per se, but over its character. While find it much easier to simply play by the rules and world’s first solar-powered, car-free, zero-carbon, appreciating the achievements of modernity, their In common with the rubber cage transform- not bite the hand that feeds us. zero-waste community. preferred vision of the future is a far cry from ers, I find myself in the conflicted middle, beset Berry’s sheep farm or Gates’ “shopper’s heaven.” by contradictions and compromises that I never Unfortunately, a business-as-usual approach to But a broad transition to truly sustainable cities, if “More” is still a primary value, but not necessar- finally resolve. But one thing seems increasingly a stressed-out planet only increases the likeli- it happens at all, is likely to be slow and painful. ily more money or more of what money can buy. certain: we no longer have the luxury of binary hood of social breakdown. In this scenario, energy Power must devolve to the local and regional level. What they want is more qualitative fulfillment (local vs. global) thinking. For better and for worse demand continues to rise, while oil and natural Masses of people must find alternate ways to and less conspicuous consumption; more creative we are all connected now in an urban future. This gas reserves decline. As petrol prices spike, auto- meet the requirements of their everyday life. And expression and less impersonal bureaucracy; more doesn’t mean that particular places and bounded dependent suburbs and global industrial activity huge amounts of redevelopment capital will be clean production and less toxic pollution; more relationships no longer matter. It’s just that those severely contract. Electricity grids become non- needed to retrofit transportation, energy, water, locally-owned shops and fewer super stores; more places, and the identities they foster, are now functional as the unavailability of fuel and spare food, and healthcare systems. Especially during public places and less private property; more inextricably bound to global movements of capital, parts reduce production. Long-distance shipping economic downturns, most governments are cash- human scale community and less urban sprawl; people, ideas, and commodities. “Home” is still becomes prohibitively expensive. Likewise for the strapped, with public officials and policy makers more wild spaces and fewer shopping malls; more where the heart is; it’s just not as local and pasto- international air travel that currently transports often captive to vested interests and fluctuating cycle lanes and train tracks and fewer freeways; ral as it used to be.

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“Global learning can no longer be defined by the alleged strangeness While Berry holds out little hope for urban today,” write Grant Cornwell and Eve Stoddard, “is culture, he is wise enough to know that reducing such that national and global realities, whether of geographically distant cultures. Especially in the great urban centers large numbers of city dwellers to the lifestyles of economic, cultural, political, environmental of North America and Europe, the wild mixing of peoples, values, Kalahari Bushmen would be just as cruel as aban- or social, interpenetrate and mutually define and cultural forms has permanently reconfigured the very notion of doning a domestic pet on the highway. Even if the each other to the degree that isolating U.S. animal survived, it would be miserable.5 Instead studies from international studies is increasingly what is ordinary and what is peculiar.” of recommending a farmer’s life for all, he urges impractical” (1999, p. viiii). For over 100 years, people to “stay in cities and make them decent intercultural educators within American higher Table 2: Diversity-Internationalization Rift and livable again.” Exactly how he doesn’t say. education have employed geographically marked Global “Our airborne economy has turned into deadfall, terms—like distant lands, overseas study, educa- “Multicultural Education” “International Education” Learning and we have got to jack it down,” Wendell declares tion abroad, and international education—to unequivocally. “The problem is that we are all define their work. The reason can be traced to Bottom Up: Spearheaded by marginalized groups Top Down: Spearheaded by mainstream academics, under it, and so we have got to jack it down with the historical separation of multicultural educa- during the 1960s and 70s as a response to a legacy government administrators (e.g. Fulbright), and the least possible suffering to our land and people. tion within domestic settings from cross-cultural of racism, social subordination, and restricted private foundations as a response to WWII, the Cold I don’t know how this is to be done, and I am education in international settings. educational and economic opportunity War, and economic globalization inclined to doubt that anyone does” (2010, p. 26). This disconnection is nearly absolute at most U.S. Multicentric: Identified with progressive social Eurocentric: Identified with the “invisible norm” This leaves global educators with a compelling colleges and universities. “Diversity” offices are movements (women’s, civil rights, amnesty) where of middle-class white folk being sent to primarily mission: to create programs and pedagogies that typically in one place, and “internationalization” the realities and interests of people of color are European destinations to study European languages represented and cultures transform modern and rootless “residents” into offices in another. Minority student concerns rooted “dwellers.” Whether our future brings disin- are treated independent of services for both tegration, renewal, or something in between, our international students and study abroad students. Goal: To promote social justice in domestic settings Goal: To promote international understanding, by ensuring greater access to education, fairer greater economic competitiveness, and the global learning programs must instill in students Accordingly, education abroad operates in representation of minorities in campus cultures, formation of “global citizens,” while also bolstering an intimate and comprehensive knowledge of and isolation from urban field study and community and a more socially engaged pedagogy US strategic interests in overseas settings care for the world. Once again Berry points the service-learning. Some schools have tried to repair way forward. Though obviously homespun, he is the linguistic rift by re-naming offices asstudy Strategies: Strategies: nevertheless clear about his wider obligations: “I away, off-campus, or global. But fragmentation 1. Ethnic studies 1. Foreign language study must attempt to care as much for the world as for persists, largely due to a fateful divergence in their 2. Women’s/gender studies 2. Study abroad/int’l service-learning 3. Urban studies/service-learning 3. International student recruitment my household. Those are the poles between which respective development paths, racial representa- 4. “Diversity” initiatives 4. “Internationalization” initiatives a competent morality would balance and mediate: tion, and social goals (table 2 at right). the doorstep and the planet” (1969, p. 77). Our challenge as global educators is to transcend To research his book From the Holy Mountain The world’s peoples are now indissolubly linked to In this final section we begin to re-imagine a the artificial local-global division in order to create about the monasteries of the Middle East, William both local and extra-local places. Global learning global learning pedagogy between these two a “third space” that emphasizes the interac- Dalrymple (1999) scoured the refugee camps of programs must create similar linkages that provide poles—doorstep and planet—in terms of four tion and mutual influence of ‘multicultural’ and the Syrian-Iraq border for a last surviving coven of mutual benefit to majority and minority students. distinguishing markers. ‘international’ perspectives and practices. Global Nestorian Christians. At the end of his quest he was White “internationalists” have much to learn by learning can no longer be defined by the alleged told that there was a far bigger community resi- sitting with minority sisters and brothers on how 1. A doorstep-to-planet pedagogy will connect strangeness of geographically distant cultures. dent less than a mile from his west London home. power (racial, class, caste, and gender) circulates the domestic and the international in a Especially in the great urban centers of North That night he wrote in his journal: “Such are the in multiethnic communities. Likewise, “multicul- “glocal” program design. America and Europe, the wild mixing of peoples, humiliations of the travel writer in the late 20th turalists” need to be challenged to extend their values, and cultural forms has permanently recon- century. Go to the ends of the earth to search for vision beyond the domestic arena to appreci- As boundaries between doorstep and planet figured the very notion of what is ordinary and the most exotic heretics in the world and [you’ll] ate the international context of local culture and continue to blur, global educators are compelled what is peculiar. find they have cornered the kebab business at the power dynamics. “To understand something about to re-think their game. “The nature of the world end of your street in London” (p. 142-3). African American experience,” insist Cornwell and

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Stoddard, “one needs to know about the African human trafficking, privatization, biodiver- right scale in work gives power to affection,” possess a wealth of cultural experience and diaspora and something about West African sity loss, and water depletion—these are all writes Berry (1991), and a growing number of perspective, their presence is largely absent culture” (1999, p. 22). Our educational task is to problems that affect every world city. And respected philosophers and sociologists agree within the ranks of traditional study abroad reconsider, in light of new realities, what type of we moderns are complicit in them, giving at (Appiah, 1996; Sanders, 1994; Lasch, 1991; programs. Few are able to simply quit work, “glocalized” learning process we need, to help least tacit support to the systems that directly Hunter, 2010). It is within our own neighbor- pay thousands of dollars in program fees, and shape what type of student, and for what kind of or indirectly cause them. Students need hood and community, along with the region in leave their families for a semester in Spain or world. opportunities to analyze these dynamics in which these are constituted, that we learn to Senegal. Domestically based global learning local-personal terms. Otherwise it’s unlikely share in, rather than escape from, the strug- reduces the financial and familial obstacles 2. A doorstep-to-planet pedagogy will regard that they will have the necessary cognitive gles and hopes of strangers. Sojourns abroad to their participation, all the while providing study and service abroad as the geographic tools to comprehend how these problems can enable circles of concern to expand a practical and sustainable alternative to the extension of local and regional affections. radiate outward—from their personal choices outward toward other cultural localities. But fossil fuel-dependent study abroad paradigm to the policies and practices of major institu- unless we learn to humbly measure our own currently in place. Global educators have long viewed world cities like tions—to affect the destinies of each of the values against the values of others domesti- London, Paris, Tokyo and Beijing as unparalleled planet’s localities. cally, our tendency will be to wander the world 3. A doorstep-to-planet pedagogy will sites for intellectual and intercultural learning.6 as sightseers, with no gauge for evaluating engender an ethos of belonging within And for good reason: these are grand centers of • National world cities provide a ‘check’ to what we see and hear. alternative human communities. socio-technical innovation, cultural mixing, and exoticism. Global educators often complain of economic growth, even as they are arenas of student ‘misadventures’ at foreign program • National world cities confront students with dispossession, political conflict, and ecological sites. For those students primarily motivated issues of power and privilege. Raised in largely damage. The capitalist city, according to David by rootless travel or endless fun, a term of homogenous neighborhood and school envi- Harvey (1989), is “a place of mystery, the site of intercultural learning in Boston or Chicago ronments, most affluent white collegians the unexpected, full of agitations and ferments, of provides a screening mechanism to weed out are fairly oblivious to how their nationality, multiple liberties, opportunities, and alienations; unsuitable candidates for sojourns abroad. A race, native language, and social class influ- of passions and repressions; of cosmopolitanism domestic term of study and service also makes ences their relations with those of unequal and extreme parochialisms; of violence, inno- it difficult for students to bracket experiences status. Without the identity clarification that vation and reaction.” The fact that so many abroad from how life is lived back home. They comes through a domestic process of “taking education abroad programs are based in world are positioned, perhaps for the first time in the role of the other,” journeys abroad can cities suggests that global educators aspire to help their lives, to make real connections between actually confirm students in the ethnocen- While the proposed pedagogy prioritizes global students penetrate the mystery, grasp the contra- home and abroad, and to re-construct a new trism and paternalism they carry with them learning in domestic settings, it does not equate dictions, and see the possibilities. domain of moral responsibility in relation to as “unclaimed baggage.” The high risks this “place making” with “never moving.” Instead, it an integrated world. poses to host communities are well docu- suggests a way of being in the world that tran- Perhaps more controversial is the presumption that mented and sobering (McLaren, 2003). Again, scends the dualism of mobile globalists and global learning within world cities should begin, • National world cities enable students to live, foreign study and service can produce mutu- immobile localists. To be rooted in a particular not in overseas settings, but closer to home, within study and serve within the reach of their ally beneficial insight, but not until students landscape, history, and culture is not to severe domestic city-regions.7 At least five reasons advo- love. The goal of a global education is not to first learn to think critically about who they ties with people across places. Our affiliations and cate for a modified version of Berry’s “stay home” loosen up and ultimately harmonize home- are within their own multicultural world. concerns alternate, in Berry’s words, “between directive—one that bids students “start at home”: grown attachments with an imagined, “we are the doorstep and the planet.” There is, however, the world” solidarity. It is to understand our • National world cities make global education a practical progression that moves from the local • National world cities encourage students to lives as “placed” somewhere and in relation more accessible and sustainable. American (immediate community) to the regional (domes- ‘see’ global problems in local-personal terms. to someone. The necessary starting point for higher education continues to undergo tic world city) and then to the global. Envisioned The challenges we face know no geographic shaping cosmopolitan sensibilities is within massive demographic shifts. Hundreds of is the formation of a certain kind of student, a boundaries. Internal migration, population local communities. Properly speaking, caring thousands of older, low-income, or minor- “rooted cosmopolitan” (Appiah, 2005). This person growth, informal economy, land conversion, for the whole world is simply not humanly ity students are earning degrees while also is “attached to a home of his or her own, with its transportation gridlock, sweatshop labor, possible; one can only love locally. “The holding jobs and raising families. While many own cultural particularities, but takes pleasure

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from the presence of other, different, places that The Nicoya Peninsula in Costa Rica and the Hunza students from the ordinary world of family and of the cultural scenery, but loving them as living, are home to other, different, people” (p. 22). Valley in Northeast Pakistan exemplify the kind work. They travel through socio-cultural and struggling, hoping members of a particular place. of places where students might begin to rethink geographic space away from campus, and expect, Now, back home, that same love keeps re-playing For the past 15 years, the global studies program human civilization. Communities in both areas are at program’s end, to return to “normal.” To be sure, unforgettable images and conversations; they at Azusa Pacific University has attempted to grow comprised of small farmers or ranchers. Residents for some students in some programs, life abroad can’t simply “get over it” and “move on.” What such “rooted cosmopolitans.” Central to the educa- eat a plant-based diet, perform manual tasks, and is largely redundant of life at home. Having never they experienced has begun to change their rela- tional process are two off-campus terms—one maintain extensive family networks. Status has really left the “bubble,” they return home with tion to the world. in central Los Angeles and the other in resource- little to do with monetary wealth or achievement. little “re-entry stress” to manage. Indeed, their poor contexts abroad. During their international Their remarkably low levels of depression, crime, primary concern is not to re-think their core values The British anthropologist Victor Turner (1969) sojourn, students are inserted in communities that and suicide are directly related to an ethos that and lifestyle, but to reclaim, as quickly as possible, regarded such a state of liminality as a creative model self-organization, caring, and resilience. values connectivity, cohesion, stability, non-pollut- a former mental state and social network. moment, a sacred space of possibility. Being Some live in urban eco-villages or on rural home- ing work, self-reliance, appropriate technology, “betwixt and between” two social systems, liminal steads, and others with slum dwellers or Amish and energy conservation. Mind you, these aren’t But given the kind of pedagogical structure persons were positioned, perhaps for the first time farmers. Family and community hosts have repre- anti-modern ways of life. They are “home econo- described above, many students would return in their lives, to disengage from their culturally sented all major religions and over 100 ethnicities. mies” that unite land, tradition, intact families, home with perspectives utterly altered. A young anchored identity, explore new possible selves, Although students generally adopt the lifestyle of and small-scale community into a living, organic woman comes back from six months living in one and eventually re-construct an alternative iden- paysans and paisonos—people of the land, people model of social organization. of Manila’s informal settlements, enters a local tity and response to the world. It was the iconic of the place—they also are under no illusion that Pavilion’s supermarket, and bursts into tears. It’s Margaret Mead who said, “As the traveler who the kind of place-based, cooperative communities Much of what passes for knowledge, even within celebrated by Berry and others are a panacea for education abroad, is little more than abstraction Being “betwixt and between” two social systems, liminal persons were the world’s problems. Local knowledge is never piled on top of abstraction. Students can easily positioned, perhaps for the first time in their lives, to disengage from their pure or free of domination, and small-scale places complete a semester in Sydney or San Salvador culturally anchored identity, explore new possible selves, and eventually often have their own forms of oppression. largely disconnecting from real problems experi- enced by real people. Under these circumstances, re-construct an alternative identity and response to the world. Nevertheless, if modern society is to find a new our challenge is to embed students in places where the 30 kinds of bottled water and 80 kinds of dry has once been from home is wiser than he who balance between human life and nature, it will another path into the future can be modeled. cereal that does it. Another finishes a four-month has never left his own doorstep, so a knowledge of need a critical mass of people who have re-learned Pedagogically, this means that learning must be internship with the Fistula Hospital in Addis Ababa other cultures should sharpen our ability to scruti- patterns of diet, resource use, food production, immersed, immediate, emotional, and interactive. (Ethiopia) assisting some of the poorest women nize more steadily, to appreciate more lovingly, our energy consumption, and identity formation. J. Many of our programs already facilitate this kind of in the world. Months afterwards, she struggles to own.” Much in modern civilization is good, worthy William Fulbright (1989) once remarked, “[Global] “place-based education” through well-organizing reconcile the world’s suffering with the goodness of appreciation and preservation. But there is also education… may not be fast enough or strong homestays, service collaborations, and commu- of God. much that leaves us powerless, divided, and ulti- enough to save us from catastrophe, but it is nity research. Through pedagogical processes like mately homeless. Educational travel, at its best, the strongest force available for that purpose.” these, students discover that good global learners Well-meaning parents and professors try their enables students to re-construct their selves and The necessary first step in that education is for have much in common with good farmers. To be best to console. Having decided years ago that their futures with a discerning combination of students to be removed from the dreamworlds successful, both must practice small-scale immer- there is little that anyone could do to save the affirmation and negation. of frivolous consumption and social exclusion in sion, intimate involvement, deep caring, careful world they counsel the two girls to treat their order to inhabit spaces where they can imagine observation, proper discipline, extended commit- experience as a resume enricher. After all, a mean- A doorstep-to-planet pedagogy thus has a certain a civilization worth caring about. Then they need ment, and ongoing assessment. ingful career and family life lies before them. But endgame. It is to finally position students to pose to actually live an alternative for a long enough a funny thing happened while they were living in previously unasked questions to the way of life period of time to “normalize” a new set of cultural 4. A doorstep-to-planet pedagogy will teach the settlement and serving at the hospital.8 Little that is indigenous—and thus invisible—to them: and social habits. That kind of education abroad students to judge civilization. by little they developed a deep regard for their How does my life context influence my values and could help convince them that the improbable is hosts, not as objects of pity but as neighbors and larger meanings? How do ordinary people within indeed possible. Study away programs, whether undertaken friends every bit as real and dear as themselves. radically different local situations address their life in domestic or international settings, remove They found themselves not just liking them as part problems and realize life satisfactions?

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“Re-entry,” from this perspective, takes on a whole As global educators, we have a critical part to play Concluding Thoughts new meaning and purpose. It represents a rare in this progression. Our role is to design programs opportunity for students to collectively consider of study, service, and inquiry that, among other Culture change is fundamentally grounded in But then again, modern civilization may be too far- the path they will take in response to the world. things, provokes a “great debate” surrounding the new ways of thinking. Market-led forces can spur gone. The time for picking and choosing values and Like a sophisticated Global Positioning System values, purposes and sustainability of the world economic growth. Publicly funded research can virtues may be over. Eric Fromm, one of the most (GPS) receiver, they learn to triangulate wisdom about us debate help introduce technologies that will reduce incisive thinkers of the 20th century, was not hope- from their experience in other cultural systems . This task assumes the importance and possibility human impacts on the environment. But market ful that we could preserve civilization’s perceived in order to ultimately make a judgment as to of assessing, comparatively and critically, the gains mechanisms and technological innovations are not benefits while restraining its destructiveness. This what should be cherished and what should be and losses of modern civilization. Three questions enough. Deep change in the character of civiliza- is because “we deal with structures and cannot challenged within their own. Marshall McLuhan and a table suggest a possible structure for such a tion requires the transformation of core human pick out preferred parts from one structure and famously remarked, “Fish don’t know water until debate: values. The critical agents of this project are not, combine them with preferred parts of the other beached.” Until students have their own reality first and foremost, business leaders, government structure.” For Fromm, “the fact of structuraliza- rendered less invisible as the water they swim in, • What has civilization made possible (gains)? agencies, religious institutions, or even non- tion in social as well as in individual life narrows they can’t begin to sufficiently see the polluted • What has civilization made difficult or governmental organizations. Powerful groups have down our choice to that between structures, features, much less feel the loss. And only if impossible (losses)? a vested interest in a particular way of viewing the rather than that between single traits, alone or they feel the loss can they marshal the internal • How do those gains and losses “square” world and doing things. Values shift as involved combined” [italics mine] (1968, p. 94-5). resources to become the kind of person needed with a vision of human and ecological citizens—and mainly young adults—become for the kind of world they desire. flourishing? aware of a larger world and begin to revise the I’m not suggesting we are yet in a position to idea of what constitutes a well-lived life and a render a final judgment on the structure of well-ordered society. Joined by millions of others modern civilization. It is altogether possible that Table 3: Civilization’s Gains and Losses across the globe, they become the change they we are standing on the threshold of a “great want to see in the world. turning” that will fundamentally reinvent human Civilization’s Gains Civilization’s Losses Flourishing values and systems. If we can follow this trans- (Achievements/Opportunities) (Failures/Threats) Can educational travel help facilitate this “neces- formation through to a saner and more resilient Unprecedented levels of money-as-wealth Meaningful work Organized warfare sary revolution”? Or is it largely powerless before future, I would be the first to declare civilization creation Economic sharing Mass production of non-essential consumer the economic and social forces that relentlessly a resounding success. If not, we will likely enter Medical advances Life contentment goods Improved sanitation; longer life Creative expression Commodification of resources and domesticate high-value sites of intercultural learn- what historian Ian Morris calls “Nightfall”—an Increase in scientific knowledge Spontaneity relationships ing into mere objects of the tourist gaze? I’d like era marked by environmental catastrophe, global Rise of the modern university Spiritual vitality Addiction to money and power Continuous creative innovation Caring relationships Trivialization of cultural tradition to think that as students return from domestic pandemics or nuclear war. “The next 40 years,” Efficient industrial production Strong families Severed social ties: family and clan and international terms of study and service, they contends Morris, “will be the most important in Smart, fast and agile corporations Human-scale community Glorification of technology will be able to pick and choose among the varied human history” (2010, p. 608). Efficient supply chains Appropriate technology Machines substituted for human labor Democratic freedoms Healthy ecosystems “Bad religion”: regimented, dogmatized, even elements of human culture to find those that are Expansion of consumer choice Compassion militarized most aligned with their preferred future. Perhaps, Visual and musical arts Non-violence Moral autism: loss of emotional and moral given careful attention to re-entry planning and Instantaneous global communication Just relations sensitivity and commitment Global air travel and cultural exchange Self-reliance Mass illusion by global pop culture a contagion of student resolve, the gap between Diverse, dynamic, networked cities Healthful food Chronic anxiety and depression “homecoming” and “homemaking” can be bridged Social justice movements Relevant education Heart disease, obesity, and diabetes and the current system “tipped” in a more desir- Human rights/“rule of law” (e.g. protection Aggressive exploitation of nature of private property) Widening income gaps able direction. Ethical universalism (e.g. Universal Flooding of markets with consumer goods and Declaration of Human Rights) toxic garbage

22 23 Richard Slimbach

This essay has urged global educators to critically examine the kind of world they are preparing students to References both indwell and create. Awakened from the kind of “Que será, sera” fatalism and mass cynicism that runs roughshod over positive change, students can begin to see beyond the fog to choose, in the hear-and-now, Anderson, W. T. (2001). All Connected Now: Life in the First Global Civilization.Boulder, CO: Westview. Appiah, K. A. (1996). “Cosmopolitan Patriots.” In For Love of Country, ed. M. Nussbaum and J. Cohen, 21–29. Boston, a secure path into an unknown future. On this we give our beloved Wendell the last word: MA: Beacon Press. Auge, M. (1995). Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity. London, GBR: Verso. Bellah, R., et al. (1992). The Good Society. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. This game of ‘How to survive for the next 100 years’ is Berry, W. (1987). The Collected Poems of Wendell Berry, 1957-1982. San Francisco, CA: North Point Press. useless. Nobody knows what is going to happen in the ----- (1969). The Long-legged House. Washington DC: Shoemaker & Hoard. ----- (1987). Home Economics. San Francisco, CA: North Point Press. next 100 years. The next 100 years will be mostly surpris------. (1989, September). The futility of global thinking. Harper’s Magazine, 16-22. ing, as were the last 100 years. It is the present that ought ----- (1990). What Are People For? New York: North Point. to concern us, and for the present we have had good -----. (1991). Nobody loves this planet. In Context, no. 27 (Winter). instructions, from several traditions, for a long time. We ----- (1991). Out of your car, off your horse. Atlantic Monthly 267(2): 61-63 must quit being selfish, greedy, and violent. We must ----- (1994). Sex, Economy, Freedom and Community. New York: Pantheon. ----- (2004). The Long-legged House. Washington D.C.: Shoemaker & Hoard. respect the works of God, and do good work ourselves. ----- (2010). What Matters? Berkeley, CA: Counterpoint. We must help our neighbors (including our enemies). We Castells, M. (2009). The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture (2nd ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell must care for the old, the poor, the infirm, and the home- Publishers. less. We must keep our promises. We must preserve our Cornwell, G. H. & Stoddard, E. W. (1999). Globalizing Knowledge: Connecting International and Intercultural Studies. communities, and teach the young. Whatever we use, Washington D.C.: Association of American Colleges and Universities. Dalrymple, W. (1999). From the Holy Mountain. New York: Holt. we must preserve. If we do these things in the present, Feinberg, B. (2002). What Students Don’t Learn Abroad. The Chronicle of Higher Education. 48, B20. we need not worry about the future. If we don’t do them Friedman, T. (2005). The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux. in the present, the future will not be much improved by Friedman, T. (2009). Hot, Flat, and Crowded 2.0. New York: Picador. making plans. (Quoted in Schumaker, 1992) Fromm, E. (1968). The Revolution of Hope. New York: Bantam Books. Fulbright, W. J. (1989). Keynote address. 42nd International Conference on Educational Exchange report. New York, NY: CIEE. Gates, B. (2010, February). Energy: Innovating to Zero. Podcast retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/bill_gates.html Harvey, D. (1989). The Urban Experience. Baltimore, MD: The John Hopkins University Press. Heinberg, R. (2004). Power Down. New Society Publishers. Hunter, J.D. (2010). To Change the World. New York: Oxford University Press. Hunter, J. D. & Gates, J. (2002). In the Vanguard of Globalization. In Berger, P. & Huntington, S. (Eds.), Many Globalizations. New York: Oxford University Press. Jackson, W. (1994). Becoming Native to This Place. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky. Jensen, D. (2007). Endgame, Vol. 1: The Problem of Civilization. Westminster, MD: Seven Stories Press. Kurzweil, R. (2006). The Singularity is Near. New York: Penguin. Lasch, C. (1991). The Culture of Narcissism. New York: W.W. Norton. Lewin, R. Ed. (2009). The Handbook of Practice and Research in Study Abroad: Higher Education and the Quest for Global Citizenship. New York: Routledge. Louv, R. (2008). Last Child in the Woods. New York: Algonquin Books. Lyle, J.T. (2008). Regenerative Design for Sustainable Development. New York: Wiley. McLaren, D. (2003). Rethinking Tourism and Ecotravel, 2nd ed. Kumarian Press. Milanovic, B. (2007). Worlds Apart: Measuring International and Global Inequality (Princeton: Princeton University Press). Morris, I. (2010). Why the West Rules—For Now. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Ogden, A. (2008). The View from the Veranda: Understanding Today’s Colonial Student. Frontiers: the Interdisciplinary Journal of Study Abroad, 15, 35-56. Ritzer, G. (1995). The McDonaldization of Society. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press. Sanders, S.R. (1994). Staying Put: Making a Home in a Restless World. Boston: Beacon Press. Schumaker, W. (1992). Now, if I ruled the world… Sierra, 77, May/June 1992, 114-132. Taleb, N. N. (2007). The Black Swan. New York: Penguin. Turner, V. (1969). The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-structure. Chicago, IL: Aldine. Weber, M. (1958). The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. New York: Scribners.

24 25 Notes

1 see, for example, James Tainter, The Collapse of Complex Societies (Cambridge University Press, 1990); Jared Richard Slimbach is Professor of Global Studies and Diamond, Collapse (Penguin, 2005); Thomas Homer-Dixon, The Upside of Down (Island Press, 2006); James Howard Kunstler, The Long Emergency (Grove Press, 2006); James Gustave Speth, The Bridge at the Edge of the Director of the Global Studies Program at Azusa Pacific World (Yale University Press, 2009); and Richard Heinberg, The End of Growth (New Society Press, 2011). University in Southern California. He founded Azusa’s Los Angeles Term and Global Learning Term programs. 2 Reinhold Niebuhr, Moral Man and Immoral Society (New York, NY: Scribners, 1952). Also see Noam Chomsky, More recently, he co-created the Master of Arts in Necessary Illusions (South End Press, 1999) and Richard Hughes, Myths Americans Live By (University of Illinois Transformational Urban Leadership (MATUL), perhaps Press, 2004). the only academic program in the world focused 3 That knowledge continues to multiply at a dizzying rate. Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google, estimates that humans exclusively on the one billion slum and shantytown create as much information every two days as they did from the dawn of civilization until 2003. http://techcrunch. dwellers. Slimbach holds a Ph.D. in comparative and com/2010/08/04/schmidt-data/ international education from UCLA. He specializes in cross-cultural program designs that integrate traditional 4 The aviation industry has yet to find an energy source that is concentrated enough by weight, affordable enough by volume, abundant enough in supply, and environmentally sustainable enough to replace conventional jet and experiential pedagogies, and cultivate in students fuel. A presentation by the World Bank’s top air transport expert explains our current situation: http://aspo.tv/ a “fair share” of responsibility for the fate of the world. speakers/schlumberger-charles/the-future-of-air-transportation/ He is the author of Becoming World Wise (Stylus, 2010). In his spare time, Richard enjoys converting castaway 5 Primitivists like Derrick Jensen (Endgame) and Daniel Quinn (Ishmael) propose such an “undoing” of civilization. bicycles into fixed-gear commuters. He lives with Leslie, Presumably, people would relocate en masse from cities to the countryside where they could adopt ecologically correct lifestyles. Obviously, this would require massive population dislocations, not to mention the abandon- partner of 28 years, and their two children (Justus and ment of at least 10,000 years of cultural development. Otherwise sympathetic anarchists like Noam Chomsky Destinae) in Monrovia, California. regard this as pure nonsense that would lead to “the mass genocide of millions.”

6 See Frontiers: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Study Abroad, Vol. XX, Spring 2011, Special Issue: Study Abroad and the City.

7 Examples of North American cities in the world city network include Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver in Canada, and New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston, Miami, Atlanta, San Francisco, Washington, and Seattle in the U.S. Each attracts globally connected multinational firms as centers of financial services, technology development, design, marketing, transportation, communications, administration, education or entertainment. Theyalso concentrate social problems, including high levels of income inequality and social exclusion.

8 Development ethicist Dennis Goulet describes such acts of downward mobility as “existential insertion in a mode of structural vulnerability.” See his Development Ethics at Work (Routledge, 2006).

26 27 Dickinson College P.O. Box 1773 | Carlisle, PA 17013 Phone: 717–245–1031 | Fax: 717–245–1677 | www.forumea.org | [email protected] The Forum on Education Abroad is hosted by Dickinson College.