Himley

Himley, Margaret. "Facing (up to) 'The Stranger' in Community Service Learning." College Composition and Communication 55 (2004): 416-438.

In feminst and po-co studies, 'the stranger' is one who is fetishized and/or feared, and "haunts the project of community service learning" (417). Even ASL projects rooted in reciprocity (a la Cushman) contend with power assymetries--the need to exploit, even if just to get a story (ethnography, for example)--but we nonetheless need to keep envisioning projects that foster social justice. The dilemmas have no answers, but we need to keep encountering the stranger nonetheless. The stranger "reveals the power assymetries, social antagonisms, and historical detriments that are all too often concealed by discourses of volunteerism or civic literacy" (417).