Travel as pedagogy: embodied learning in short-term study abroad

Abstract

In this paper I discuss a model for creating embodied learning opportunities in study abroad curricula, which purposefully uses students’ physical movement through foreign landscapes to inform and enhance their understanding of local social, political, economic, cultural, and historical phenomena. Pedagogical tactics include: challenging and reframing the common distinction between “important” and “unimportant” instructional times and places; loosely structured itineraries that allow for greater student autonomy and collaboration; seeking multiple vantage points (both geographic and textual) from which to observe and analyze locations; purposeful and attentive travel between study locations that helps connect cognitive to visceral experience. These tactics help students cultivate the ability to read landscapes, a skill that them to understand a landscape not only as historical narrative but also as a social actor that influences and is influenced by the everyday practices of people who inhabit it. To demonstrate these strategies, I discuss how they were implemented in a recent short-term study abroad program to various sites within the former Yugoslavia.