Hesford

Hesford, Wendy S. "Global/Local Labor Politics and the Promise of Service Learning." Radical Relevance: Toward a Scholarship of the Whole Left. Ed. Laura Gray-Rosendale and Steven Rosendale. Albany: State U of New York P, 2005. 183-202.

Hesford reviews the implications of the globalized and corporatized university, including consumerist models of curriculum and pedagogy, calling upon her audience to interrogate how ASL accepts/rejects exploitative labor practices. ASL provides labor as well as value for both higher ed and community agencies and we should be aware, Hesford writes, of how specific programs impact labor and material realities. E.g., she explains how her students provided volunteer labor to a shelter that had formerly relied upon public moneys. Do ASL programs facilitate decreased state funding for social services? Further, one year the shelter failed to garner a grant for funding labor during the summer (when it felt the lack of student labor). Hesford wonders if her students would be better off protesting at the state capital or continuing to provide the services/labor. Unpaid interships at private corporations effect local economies, providing free labor for the company and taking paid work from an employee. ASL, likewise, enters into labor-based relationship with worksites. Further, the service work remains feminized--a dynamic we often fail to question. Being reflexive isn't enough, for reflexivity doesn't necessarily address these material relationships.