Virtual Classrooms Conducted
Nasrin Siraj discusses land rights and gender with bachelor’s students of Wageningen University and Research’s “Land and Water Politics” course led by Dr Mindi Schneider, with Dr Jeroen Warner of WUR and Dr Oliver Scanlan of CSD-ULAB.
PPLA has completed its “Virtual Classrooms” component. In six sessions across six different courses, project partners facilitated the entry of grass-roots voices from the field in Bangladesh into classrooms in the Global North, in order to effectively cross-fertilise project findings across current teaching curricula. This included Indigenous and Women’s voices into discussions of gender and climate change lessons for bachelor’s and master’s students of Development Studies and EU studies, as well as raising awareness of European Union development policy across the board.
Examples include:
Uttaran Staff Member Mita Rahman discussing the difficulties of effectively ensuring gender equitable land rights in development practice, as part of a Master’s level course “Introduction to Development” facilitated by Dr Niamh Gaynor of Dublin City University.
Caritas Mymensingh Regional Director Apurbo Mrong and PPLA Researcher Parag Ritchil discussing the difficulties of reconciling the land rights of Indigenous communities with conservation strategies in the Master’s course “Environmental Change and World Politics” led by Dr Danny Marks, also of Dublin City University.
PPLA Researcher Nasrin Siraj discussing concrete project findings regarding gendered exclusion during land digitalisation processes in both the bachelor’s level courses “Land and Water Politics” and “Introduction to European Integration” led by Dr Mindi Schneider of Wageningen University and Research and Professor Christian Kaunert of Dublin City University Respectively.
Reactions from both students and course instructors have been very positive. As part of the project we will soon be publishing both a report and a recommended “how to” guide for the virtual classrooms for anyone who wishes to replicate the exercise. This has the potential to be a very valuable tool in ongoing efforts to decolonise curricula and further empower voices from marginalised groups and regions in education.