Western Washington University Lecture: Design & Development

Kai Wood Mah and Patrick Lynn Rivers, Afield's co-directors, addressed approximately 100 undergraduates, faculty, and Bellingham (WA) community members today as a part of Fairhaven College's World Issues Forum. The presentation by Mah and Rivers was used to outline some of the ways that research-creation and development practice can impact the way that the assessment of international development programs take place and the way that such alternative means of assessment can lead to innovations in development policies and practices. The presentation was particularly used to consider the way that research-creation can be used to blunt an emerging nationalism in the United States leading the new American government to discount engagement with the Global South and eschew international development. The presentation was further deployed to contrast the current international development assistance disposition of the US and Canada.

Fairhaven College is one of several colleges constituting Western Washington University. It is best known for its open progressive curriculum that requires students to construct their own interdisciplinary course of study. The college also promotes social justice activism as a part of its curricular and extracurricular programs.