Paper details

Paper authors	Jessica Hawkins
In panel on	Teaching violence: trauma, professionalisation and humanitarian education
Paper presenter(s) will be presenting	In-Person / Online

Abstract

This paper considers the ethics and pedagogy of taking students of humanitarian studies on research visits to conflict-affected societies. Through an application of Kolb’s (2015) experiential learning cycle to the process of teaching, the paper argues that student research visits, when carefully organised, planned and executed, bring pedagogical benefits to the complexity of teaching conflict. The cycle enables educators to provide students with an understanding of conflict and humanitarianism which enhances their theoretical knowledge whilst ensuring these academic programmes instil the ethical consideration of working in these sectors. Through a four stage process, the experiential learning cycle further helps to overcome the pitfalls of conflict tourism or voluntourism which many academics and students in the field wish to avoid whilst research in country. The paper also evaluates how this pedagogy has been adopted for a Cobid-19 teaching environment.

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