ABSTRACT
This chapter proposes to advance the seldom heard voice of the (South Asian/ West Asian/Middle-Eastern) Brown experience within Western university experiential learning programs (ELP) abroad. Often caught between Western multiculturalism’s understanding of a dichotomy/binary of “Black and White”, Brownness is often recognized in regard to such realities of racial profiling in airport securities, but invisible, misunderstood or even purposefully misconstrued in the academic setting. For over eight years, the author has led a university project in sub-Sahara Africa which seeks to facilitate local creation of an Education, Health and Development emancipatory-based knowledge transfer campus and has incorporated university undergraduates and graduates as part of the process. As students primarily come from White backgrounds and attempt to develop intercultural competencies while navigating culture shock, the inclusion of anything else besides White and Black relationships are rarely, if ever, part of the discussion or consideration. During a recent ELP based trip with students to Malawi, the author read Shiva Naipaul’s (1978) North of South, and reflected on his own shared attempts to make sense of the kinds of liberatory movements that have and still take place in the sub-Sahara, and the often-ignored perspectives outside of the predominantly White voice.
