ABSTRACT
Transformative engagements, in contrast to instrumental engagements, embody the idea of learning and doing in the company of others. This chapter focuses on four additional concerns for transformative engagements. These are derived from ongoing critical reflections of our well-intentioned collaborations with community leaders from Europe, an informal settlement located in Gugulethu, Cape Town. They include the role of teaching while simultaneously hoping to enable transformative outcomes in Southern contexts; an inadvertent 'slippage' between facilitating instrumental and transformative engagements; students' anxieties arising from engagements with community partners; and the timing of engaged scholarship in the curriculum. Before discussing these concerns, a brief explanation of the project's history is required. In the Europe project, students' fears of failure, the reduction of their experiences to grades, and the emotionally taxing nature of engagements were further compounded by a sense that "the community leaders with whom we were interacting seemed little invested in the project".
