This case study, led by Leonora Angeles, conducted community-based service learning as a mutual learning experiment for MA planning students, faculty members, NGO planners and local residents. It focuses on the possibilities and constraints in planning and building solidarity economies in local and transnational spaces, using Philippine-Canadian connections as context.
The course began in Vancouver in Spring of 2016 as MA students prepared for departure and met organizations in Canada that maintain transnational linkages with Philippine-based partners. Then, the course shifted into the service learning component as they integrated with organizations in the Philippines. Students engaged with some of the movers and shakers of a new kind of transnational bayanihan (the Philippine value of self -help and cooperation) that goes beyond the shortcomings of old-style Philippine Left and Canadian Left politics that dominated the transnational political landscapes. This research will help us understand how they use volunteering, organizing and creativity to create not just a caring economy, but also a just cooperative economy operating in the shadows of what some hope to be coming – a post-capitalist and post-carbon society.
In 2016, three inter-related case studies explored the ongoing work of organizations with transnational migrant connections:
- Migrante of B.C. & Migrante International in Manila
- KAIROS-Canada & United Church in the Philippines in Baguio
- Mennonite Church of Canada and Coffee for Peace in Davao