The 12th International Association for Research on Service-Learning and Community Engagement Annual Conference

Society positions as heroes individuals who have pursued knowledge to great achievement and contribution. Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, Marie Curie, and many others like them are icons. Solo artists and intellectual heroes stand out and apart from others around them. While applause for individual achievement in the pursuit of knowledge may well be warranted, casting knowledge production only that way obscures a fundamental feature of learning: who else besides the spotlighted individual contributes to it, where it happens, and what ends learning serves. To summarize, most narratives of knowledge pursuit, as individual persons’ accomplishments, are decontextualized and disconnected from the array of other persons, places, and purposes that are all part of it.