As part of a panel for the recent Social History Society annual conference, I took part in a discussion about how teaching history is relevant and important for student practitioners studying SSPSSR’s Masters in Philanthropic Studies.
Writes Dr Triona Fitton, Lecturer in Student Success
School of Sociology, Social Policy and Social Research
After reflecting on the discussion for a recent SHS blog post, I concluded that both history and geography play an important role in situating academic knowledge, and one does not preclude the other. While history is undeniably important, the intersection of both time and place is more so, particularly for student practitioners working for or hoping to work in non-profit sectors in countries around the world. To borrow from Warren Ilchman, Stanley Katz & Edward Queen , this is about understanding traditions and how these influence, and are influenced by, geographic contexts. Below, I will explain how this is navigated within this particular course, and how this links to the key tenets of the internationalisation agenda in higher education.
One of the core modules on the MA Philanthropic Studies is Global Philanthropy: Comparative Perspectives. Here, students learn about cultural variations in giving habits; state and market provision and how philanthropy ‘plugs the gap’; and how globalisation has changed the landscape of charitable action. Every week looks at philanthropy in a different regional context, with an emphasis upon exploring beyond the ‘Western’ perspectives that otherwise tend to dominate this particular academic sphere. The content contains guest lectures from experts who study philanthropy within their own countries, allowing an ‘insider’ view of the cultural differences between those and the perspectives on the rest of the course. One of these guests is Dr Amelia Fauzia discussing Islamic philanthropy, where she highlights the historical influence of faith in the context of giving. The way this has instigated (or prevented) political and cultural change in Muslim countries epitomises how history and geography interconnect in the exploration of philanthropic traditions.
To offer another example, when looking at African philanthropy, students learn about the tradition of ubuntu, a word used in Bantu/Zulu/Nguni humanist philosophy to describe how we only become truly human through collective action. Desmond Tutu famously described ubuntu as being how “my humanity is caught up, is inextricably bound up, in what is yours”. To illustrate this, students are invited to look at two case studies of African countries (Ethiopia and Nigeria) and then conduct their own mini case study of an African country of their choice. This initiates important debates about the influence of colonialism, luxury industries such as safari tourism and diamond mining, and the oil industry, in relation to relative deprivation and political corruption across the continent. The student discussions shine a light on the perverse effects of intensive globalisation upon the tradition of community-centric and ‘horizontal’ philanthropy in Africa.
By also looking more broadly at topics such as cross-national and diasporic giving, the module aims to avoid the tendency to compartmentalise the topic into intra-national and localised charitable action only. Resources that offer an overview of geographical variations in philanthropy – for example the CAF World Giving Index and the many outputs of the John Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project – facilitate the comparative aims of the module and seek to look beyond the simplicity of defining philanthropy according to the boundaries of a given nation-state. Borders are in many ways irrelevant when it comes to shared cultures of philanthropy, which often develop from transnational religious traditions, and shared regional experiences. Philanthropy (alongside other socially-motivated behaviour such as volunteering and activism) acts as a useful lens for studying how culture and tradition ebb and flow around the globe in conjunction with migration and flexible citizenship.
As a higher education institution, it is part of our ethos to embrace, learn from and respond to cultural diversity. The opportunity to both ‘learn from’ and ‘respond to’ cultural diversity is opened up by the MA being delivered via distance learning, as we have welcomed students from as far away as Singapore and Latin America who work within the global non-profit sector and are able to share reflections on their own experiences as part of the course. The restrictions of time and place upon students can be circumvented by the asynchronous online format of the course, ironically reflecting the aims of the aforementioned module and promoting international diversity of our student body. By enabling them to reflect on their situated understanding of the flexible interpretation of philanthropic traditions, we can enrich course content, and mitigate the tendency towards cultural deficit when teaching student practitioners.