Whose Project Is It Anyway? The Case of Waste for Life, Argentina

The primary cultural tensions that the authors explore in this chapter are disciplinary and social. They focus on "Engineering Culture" and attempt to critique the practice of engineering service-learning as a very specific activity of the Global North, embedded with a priori social and cultural presumptions that map a pro development, charity-based perspective onto the Global South. The authors first locate engineering in its Northern context and develop a critique of the "common sense" ways of thinking that have emerged, and which influence students and teachers alike. The authors make the point that service-learning based in this paradigm can be at best a charitable aid and at worst destructive to the "receiving" communities. The authors will use the case of the not-for-profit organization Waste for Life, which they founded in 2007, to explore and present some emerging ideas for an alternative approach to the preparation and consideration of student involvement in community based engineering projects, which might to a certain degree mitigate potential cultural tensions.