Convened by Friederike Trotier, University of Passau, and "Annette Witherspoon, Friedensau Adventist University

Critical Development Studies engages with complex real-world issues, yet traditional teaching approaches often leave students demotivated or disillusioned about their role in society. To address this gap, experiential learning approaches, such as field trips and study tours, are increasingly becoming a feature of Development Studies programs. As a transdisciplinary field, Critical Development Studies provides space for diverse pedagogical approaches; however, systematic reflection on these teaching and learning approaches remains limited. This panel invites discussions on innovative pedagogies that foster reflexivity while recognising the intricate encounters, practices and challenges involved in knowledge production and sharing. We particularly highlight student study tours, field trips, and other forms of experiential learning as sites where classroom knowledge intersects with development-driven everyday encounters, raising critical questions about power, hierarchy, and colonial legacies, as well as racism.

Contributions may address questions such as: How can we conceptualise student study tours and field trips amid their diversity? How might we acknowledge and reframe their colonial legacies, especially in relation to the Global South, as part of decolonisation efforts? How can experiential learning be designed and analysed in relation to critical knowledge production? What insights emerge from the perspectives of students, hosts and local participants before, during and after encounters in the field?

By engaging with these questions, the panel seeks to advance a conceptualisation of experiential and field-based learning as a distinctive mode of pedagogy and knowledge production in Development Studies. We welcome proposals from scholars, students and practitioners reflecting on, but not limited to, the following themes: 

Transnational field encounters in higher education; 

Experiential and field-based learning in efforts to decolonise universities;

Perspectives of hosts and local participants in these encounters;

Racial dynamics and power imbalances;

Conceptualising experiential learning in development and decolonisation debates