Academic Field Instruction as Development Communication Praxis

Abstract

This paper looks at academic field instruction as a venue to contest assumptions made in development communication regarding development, communication, communities, learning, and participation. Through autoethnographic writing and analysis, we critique these assumptions using critical pedagogy, reflexive sociology, and standpoint theory as theoretical lenses. We argue that there is a shared yet unarticulated view of development and communication that is institution-led, innovation-centric, modernist, and rooted in the institution’s history and development contexts. It is embedded in the way field instruction is institutionalized and articulated in the manner by which students build relationships with people and sustain such engagements. In this paper, we draw the theoretical, methodological, and ethical implications of situated, narrative-based research on development communication education. Academic field instruction, in our view, should look at development communication as a process and outcome of collaboration between the academe and communities. We also advocate for autoethnography as a more introspective methodology for development communication research and to look at development communication as an intrinsic value.