ABSTRACT
Watson, McIntosh, and Watson argue that one aim of global citizenship education is to foster student action, through civic engagement with a global dimension, to make the world a more equitable place. While critical global citizenship is a useful concept for focusing attention on recognition of inequalities, we suggest that specific attention must be given to identifying dominant historic relationships between local and global to understand implicit tensions in enacting global citizenship. We present a case study of a service project, co-designed to bring about change for local food producers in India. We demonstrate, through a decolonial analysis, how projects that aim to address pressing needs may further promote the conditions that create the problems. Through our critical dialogues, we argue that global citizenship education operating within forces of globalization and an aggressive capitalist agenda can do little more than maintain problematic tensions unless it can unmask deeply embedded, historical, cultural, and social inequalities. We conclude that critical analysis can make visible the historic inequalities within situated contexts and bring liberative possibilities for re/designing active service and civic engagement projects that work against injustices.
