From classroom to post-conflict zones: Transforming learning through the Africa Study Visit

Abstract

The Africa Study Visit (ASV) module offers students an immersive educational experience that bridges academic theory with practical fieldwork in post-conflict environments across Africa. This article examines how the ASV fosters a unique learning journey, taking students beyond the classroom to directly engage with the complex realities of post-conflict development. Through case studies, this article explores the critical skills students gain, from data collection and cultural sensitivity to ethical research practices. In addition, the ASV’s impact extends beyond students, as partnerships with local organisations foster reciprocal benefits, supporting local communities with fresh insights and development-oriented research. By emphasising experiential learning in challenging contexts, the ASV not only prepares students for careers in international development but also contributes to knowledge production within peace and development studies.

Introduction

Higher education institutions are crucial in preparing students to address complex global challenges, particularly in post-conflict development contexts. Traditional learning approaches that rely predominantly on theoretical frameworks, while valuable, may not fully equip students with the practical skills needed to navigate real-world development challenges (Kolb, 1984).

The Africa Study Visit (ASV) module at the John and Elnora Ferguson Centre for African Studies (JEFCAS) at the University of Bradford, offers postgraduate students a unique opportunity to experience post-conflict environments across Africa, through experiential learning. Since its inception in 2008, the destinations of the ASV included Rwanda, Liberia, The Gambia, Ethiopia, and most recently Tunisia (2024). It is important to note that while all participants are enrolled in a master’s programme at a British–Western University, the nature of the student cohort means that a significant majority – typically around 80% – are international students, most of whom come from countries within the Global South.

ASV combines classroom-based preparatory sessions with direct, immersive field experiences in post-conflict or fragile environments (Kong, 2021). It engages students in direct conversations with local stakeholders, NGOs, community leaders, and policymakers. It encourages students to ask more thoughtful questions, reflect critically on development narratives, and consider the emotional and ethical aspects of peacebuilding.

The objective of this article is to re-examine the evolving pedagogical framework of the ASV and is broadly structured around three main issues. First is around the extent to which the ASV pedagogical model shifts over time. Second, it examines the various forms of transformation, specifically intellectual, emotional, and ethical, that it can enable. And finally, it assesses whether the ASV model can remain sustainable in the face of changing academic and political environments. This article will focus predominantly on the ASV to Tunisia 2024 as a case study. This will ultimately allow us to assess continuity and changes within the ASV model. Recent contributions in Politics, such as ‘The Joy of the Teaching Track: Learning and Teaching in Politics and International Studies’ (2025) and ‘Decolonising Politics Curricula: Exploring the Experiences and Views of Racially Minoritised Students’ (2025), indicate a growing interest in pedagogical innovation, curriculum justice, and epistemic diversity. These works help situate the ASV approach within a community of scholarship in the journal that values reflexivity, power, and learning as relational processes. Recent publications in Politics demonstrate a growing commitment to advancing scholarship on pedagogy and reflective teaching practice (Elliott et al., 2025; O’Neill, 2025).

Pedagogical approach

The analysis is informed by Kolb’s (1984) experiential learning cycle and the metaphor of the Palaver Hut (Ambrozy and Harris, 2016). This pedagogical model aims to bridge the gap between theoretical knowledge and lived experience, enabling students to confront ethical, emotional, and political complexities that cannot be fully understood through classroom learning alone.

By grounding the ASV’s pedagogical approach in Kolb’s (1984) experiential learning cycle, the module posits that deep learning occurs through a cyclical process: concrete experience, reflective observation, abstract conceptualisation, and active experimentation. To operationalise this, the ASV supports students through this full cycle. Initially, it includes a robust preparatory phase in which students are introduced to the critical historical and political contexts of a particular country, alongside methodological and ethical training. The preparation incorporates lectures, workshops, role-playing exercises, and discussions of research ethics—particularly within post-conflict environments—reflecting best practice in experiential learning (Cerasani et al., 2019). Here, especially important are debates around confidentiality, anonymity, and the multiple dimensions of positionality, including power and representation, the effects of large group presence, and nuances of ethical conduct in the field.

The next steps of operationalisation of this pedagogical model, include linking it to metaphorical Palaver Hut. The idea of this concept, originates from a traditional space for community deliberation, storytelling, and conflict resolution, which was and, in some areas of sub-Saharan Africa, is still utilised. It is a site of collective decision-making where diverse voices are heard, disagreements are addressed through dialogue, and social cohesion is maintained through inclusive participation (Ojo and Zartman, 2000). Drawing on this tradition, Ambrozy and Harris (2016) use the Palaver Hut as a metaphor for describing learning environment that prioritises shared reflection, mutual vulnerability, and communal knowledge production.

However, our observation of the ASV in Tunisia 2024, highlights that the Palaver Hut functions as more than metaphor – it informs the structural design of the programme itself. One of the objectives of the module is to foreground collective discussion, reflexivity, and ethical discomfort, and these principles are intentionally embedded across both classroom preparation and in-country engagement.

Operationally, The Palaver Hut, is a regular, daily space for reflection. In a facilitated and supportive environment students share their experiences and observation – they process complex realities, deconstruct assumptions, and engage in transformative dialogue. This allows the Palaver Hut to shift from being a mere metaphor, and become a practical mechanism that fosters relationality, trust, and shared reflection during the field visits. Moreover, the design of module’s assessment further reinforces this reflective practice by encouraging continued individual reflection even after the field visit concludes.

Drawing on the metaphor of the ‘Palaver Hut’ and grounding it in Kolb’s (1984) experiential cycle, the ASV framework points to the importance of this unique experimental learning model as being predominantly based on fostering collective reflection (Ambrozy and Harris, 2016). As such the most important feature is the creation of a space where participants are encourages to reflect together, share discomfort, unpack emotional responses and address dilemmas that arise from complicated post-conflict contexts, as well as from cross-cultural engagement. It centres the learning experience around relationality, mutuality, respect and care.

This pedagogical approach remains foundational to the ASV. This approach matters because traditional classroom-based teaching often struggles to prepare students for the ethical, emotional, and political complexities they will encounter in the field. By embedding experiential learning, collective reflection, and ethical engagement at its core, the model offers insights that can inform a wide range of teaching practices in higher education, well beyond the Africa Study Visit itself. It provides a framework for designing learning that is relational, transformative, and responsive to the challenges of globalised education. At the same time, recent years have seen a transformation in how this model operates and how it’s received. Especially COVID pandemic (Elmer et al., 2020; Giovannella, 2021), and the rapid expansion of online learning platforms have reshaped how students engage with content, peers and academics. These changes are rapidly transforming Western academia – both in terms of expectations directed towards higher education and also in terms of the engagement and values with which students approach their learning experience. While it is important to note that, while well-design online courses can include participatory elements, the ASV models highlights the importance of learning which is grounded in physical presence and lived experiences. In-person field encounters, like the one discussed in this article offer an important encounter that go far beyond complexity, spontaneity, unpredictability – one that offers emotional intensity that is difficult, if not impossible, to replicate online.

The ASV’s effects

The key assumption and somewhat aspiration of the ASV is to provoke that students experience a sense of ‘epistemological rupture’ and ultimately start to question the conventional knowledge systems. This goes in line with Ambrozy and Harris’s (2016: 36) comments that, the idea that the ‘knowledge and perception of each student is directly challenged’ remains central to the ASV module. While the depth and scope of this challenge shifts and changes, this ‘rupture’ is not incidental. This transformative impact is closely aligned with Mezirow’s (2000) concept of ‘transformative learning’, whereby significant shifts in worldview are triggered by ‘disorienting dilemmas’ – experiences that compel learners to critically reassess previously questioned beliefs. Similar shifts in pedagogical experiences are often summarised as causing ‘discomfort’ (Zembylas, 2015), triggering ‘resistance’, or ‘discouragement’ (Brookfield, 2017). The experiences of the ASV suggest an alternative interpretation. As one participant from the Tunisia 2024 Study Visit stated, it is precisely these kinds of experiences that students value most:

My expectations, hmmm. . . [long pause], I know it will be unusual, but I want something ‘else’; I want to be shocked and shaken, I want to be forced to re-examine my entire experience of the world, of people, of values, of community – of how ‘it’ all is defined. . .(. . .) (ASV Participant, 2024)

Or as another, in this case Nigerian participant from Rwanda 2025 Study Visits stated:

This was not a field visit – this was a Turning Point. For me it was like major reorientation of how I see, how I approach and how I understand the continent where I was born. (ASV Participant, 2025)

Such comments prove the ASV’s enduring power to create space for epistemological rupture – not only challenging the content of knowledge but also unsettling the very frameworks through which students come to know.

The transformational effect of the Africa Study Visit and the significance of the ‘deep learning’ it enables has been consistently observed across successive, fifteen cohorts of students.

Similar impact of the ASV’s on student learning is primarily assessed through post-visit reflective essays, but is also based on student-led debriefs, academic supervision, and the continued engagement with course alumni. This allows for insight into how students and graduates make sense of the ethical, emotional, and intellectual challenges they encounter. While above mentioned transformation is not uniform or easily measurable, consistent patterns have emerged across cohorts. Students often report increased awareness of their positionality, discomfort with prior assumptions, and deeper appreciation of local complexity. In some cases, students have gone on to design field-based dissertations in similar contexts or pursue careers in international development and peacebuilding, citing, similarly as student quoted above, the ASV as a ‘turning point’ in their understanding:

Coming to Liberia with the Study Visit, help me to realise that I had found what I was searching for. It was there that I discovered what I really want to do with my life. It was by far the most powerful, and impactful part of my master’s degree (ASV Participant 2013, now working in UN in East Africa)

This observation highlights the ongoing relevance of the ASV module. While the degree of impact, similarly as in the past, depends on the individual’s willingness and capacity to engage, it is recognised that the module offers a unique opportunity to extend beyond surface-level or procedural understanding of peacebuilding and development, similarly as highlighted ten years ago by Ambrozy and Harris (2016: 519) the ASV enables students to:

(. . .) go beyond the mid-range analysis of procedural problems in peacebuilding to use deeper learning, that is, to seek out often underlying structural reasons as to why (. . .) (Ambrozy and Harris, 2016: 519)

However, such transformative experiences must be contextualised within the broader ethical debates. Tuck and Yang (2012) remind that transformation is often centred around learner’s growth, and as such it risks perpetuating exploitative relationships. In this instance, the host communities – be it politicians, NGO or encounters with everyday citizens are set to be ‘agents’ or ‘instruments’ of students learning. This is especially important, as students engage with the learning process as a large, visible group and representing a Western higher education institution. In this context the potential for emotional and intellectual harm must be recognised.

This challenge is constantly being addressed before and during the field visit by promoting reciprocity and transparency. The hosting organisations and communities are engaged as co-educators and co-designers of the field-visit programme. By actively engaging them in almost every aspect of the visit their role in teaching experience is transformed and is much more central then just being merely a ‘subject of an inquiry’. As part of the Palaver Hut reflections, students are also continuously encouraged to recognise uneven power dynamics that impact their encounters and reflect on how their learning may reinforce colonial hagiarchies of knowledge (Andreotti, 2011; Heron and ProQuest, 2007).

Another important element shaping this transformative process is the deconstruction of the ‘single story’ as articulated by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2009). Despite Africa’s vast political, cultural, geographical, and, more recently, economic diversity, students often arrive with a narrow and homogenised image of the continent. A good illustration of similar tension is a comment made by one of the students who took part in the Tunisia Study Visit, who highlighted: ‘I don’t feel like I’m in “real” Africa’ (ASV Participant, 2024).

While similar comments may be seen as ‘naive’, they underscore the enduring power of Western narratives about Africa. Similar narratives often exclude North Africa from the ‘real Africa’ or the continent in exclusively rural or impoverished terms. The student’s discomfort at encountering the country’s modern, urban and cosmopolitan realities reveals not only a gap in knowledge but also an implicit expectation that Africa should confront a particular image and specific assumption. As Adichie (2009) highlights, the danger of the single story is not that it is false but that it is ‘disposed of’, and that it is ‘incomplete’.

In other instances, students are prompted to reevaluate their own value systems that underpin their own societies. For example, the questions they grappled with relation to migration and development in Tunisia (2024), extended far beyond theories of African politics and pushed them to reassess their own issues of identity, community, and purpose – what Mezirow (2000) might describe as ‘perspective transformation’.

Here, as part of engaging in the discussion around ‘migration’ they were confronted with multitude of, and at times, contradictory narratives. On the one hand, students were faced with debates about the challenges of Tunisia’s role as a transit and destination country for sub-Saharan African migrants seeking pathways to Europe. On the other hand, they were exposed to the stark reality of ‘empty streets’ – a reference to skilled Tunisians leaving the country in large numbers, leading to workforce shortages in sectors such as healthcare and business.

This discussion did not remain confined to abstract political analysis. They were made personal through encounters with individuals whose life choices challenged students’ assumptions. For instance, a Tunisian University alumnus expressed his deep sense of fulfilment in returning home after studying in the UK, and on another occasion, a tour guide recounted his decision to leave a ‘comfortable life’ in Canada and return to Tunisia, citing his longing for being part of the community, and sense of belonging. When making his comments, he sharply contrasted them with dominant Western ideals of success, which prompted a vast amount of reflection among students:

In the West, life is atomised and transactional – you are a slave to your mortgage, your big TV, your expensive car [pause]. Here, we cherish other things – time, family, community – our people (Tour Guide, ASV 2024)

Similar moments are pedagogically important and rest at the centre of the ASV module. They force students to reconsider not only what they know but also how they came to know it and who benefits from maintaining particular narratives. The discomfort that some of these encounters produce creates tension, which is a necessary component of transformative learning (Kumashiro, 2004; Zembylas, 2015).

The final element of the discussion – closely connected to both the pedagogical evolution of the ASV framework and its transformational effects, concerns the sustainability of the model. In is particularly relevant amid shifting political landscapes of host countries and the growing pressures placed on higher education institutions and students.

At its core, the Africa Study Visit is designed to create a suitable environment where students can meaningfully engage with the realities of the specific African country. Over recent years, this objective has intensified and become more structured. Students now undergo formalised training in data collection and analysis before departing to Africa. This change was informed by past experiences where students reported feeling ‘out of their depth’ (Participant 3, ASV Rwanda 2011) or being ‘terrified of saying something out-of-place’ (Participant 3, ASV Liberia 2013). This was particularly the case when students were faced with engaging with high-level officials or when discussion unexpectedly shifted, requiring students to abandon pre-prepared questions and improvise in real-time.

In these scenarios, it was usually the academic lead who had to intervene and steer the discussion. This ultimately led to students questioning their abilities and feeling as if they weren’t ‘fully engaged’ (Participant 5, ASV Liberia 2013) and they ‘didn’t make the most of the opportunity’ (Participant 3, ASV Liberia 2013). To address this, preparatory programmes now include training in conducting interviews, working with focus groups, and field observations. These adjustments visibly enhanced students’ confidence, encouraging greater independence, adaptability, and cultural sensitivity.

However, the challenges facing the ASV module extend beyond those that even the most comprehensive data collection training can resolve. They arise from political constraints in host countries, particularly where freedom of speech is limited and public discourse is tightly controlled. This has been evident in the past in visits to Rwanda, Ethiopia, and, most recently, Tunisia.

The two visits to Ethiopia (2015, 2018) were particularly difficult: government officials declined meetings. Opposition politicians were followed by undercover agents, and during second national protests and a State of Emergency was declared, creating several dilemmas for the staff and students.

The 2024 Tunisia Study Visit was also affected by the country’s political climate especially with relation to upcoming general elections Scheduled meetings were marked by hesitation, restraint and in some cases complete withdrawal The anxiety was tangible, significantly impacting the flow and depth of the dialogue.

These kinds of encounters raise valid concerns about the viability of Study Visit in politically sensitive environments. Can genuine learning occur when data is limited or guarded? In similar situations the Study Visit academic team maintains that ‘every encounter offers learning’ (ASV Tunisia, 2024). Learning emerges not only through open dialogue but also through refusal to accept the invitation, discomfort and silence. Whether respondents offer to only read pre-written statements (ASV Rwanda, 24 March 2011), openly express their discomfort or inability to answer questions (ASV Tunisia 2015), or cancel meetings entirely (Ethiopia 2018), these moments are themselves educational. They expose the realities of restricted political space, pressure faced by local actors.

What is required in similar situation is what Heifetz and Laurie (2001) call ‘adaptive leadership’. It underscores the ability to guide people through complex and uncertain environments by understanding the emotional and psychological impacts of the situation and facilitating the group’s adjustment. For ASV leading academic this means being attuned to context, aware of the emotional climate, and demonstrating sensitivity, flexibility and patience.

Working in such an environment foregrounds the skill of ethical and situated data collection. The ASV does not solely aim to gather information; it also emphasises the significance of enhancing students’ ability to navigate intellectual debates, especially in settings were external factors like politics, social unrest, or uncertainty influence people’s willingness to participate.

Establishing trust in these situations becomes a gradual process, requiring patience and understanding. Developing the art of listening actively, acknowledging the discomfort of the moment, and offering space for more cautious voices to speak can yield more profound, more authentic conversations.

This dimension of the ASV is perhaps one of its most significant contributions to the sustainability of experiential pedagogy. It teaches that research is relational, that knowledge production is inseparable from context, and that even in the absence of formal data, there is much to be gained. Students often reflect that the most profound insights arose not from formal interviews but from moments of hesitation, caution, or interpersonal tensions – when experiences and perspectives are challenged, ultimately reshaping both the politics and people of the host country:

Alongside [officially gathered primary data] I used personal in-country experiences which gave further insight into the opinions and fears of Tunisians. (ASV Participant, 2024)

This ultimately continues to prove that ASV is not a fixed template but a highly adaptive, evolving framework, one that can respond to the unpredictability of events and the politically complex reality in which the current world operates.

However, this also adds to the dilemma faced by the organisers of the Study Visits. Compared to the three politically challenging countries previously mentioned – Ethiopia, Rwanda and Tunisia – other destinations such as The Gambia are refreshingly open for researchers and indeed for the four student groups who visited (ASV 2019; ASV 2020; ASV 2022; ASV 2023).

The issue of whether to choose a ‘difficult’ or ‘easy’ destination is assessed on a case-by-case basis. Decisions are largely influenced by expertise and familiarity with contexts of the staff members being involved. The important element in this process is engaging in in-depth discussions about students’ expectations and being clear about possible challenges and constraints that the group may face during the visit.

Conclusion

Finally, what is important to note here, is that recent changes in higher education are placing increased pressure on ensuring that education and experiences offered – such as Study Visits – provide a meaningful preparation for students’ future careers. A significant number of students who took part in previous iteration of Study Visits, had gone on to work in international organisation, NGOs and governmental agencies. In doing some good number of our alumni taken up roles in various countries across the continent – from more stable nations like Botswana or Ghana, to those effacing more complex political and humanitarian situations, such as Sudan or Somalia. For each of these students, different aspects of the Study Visit, and their different destination proved formative, ultimately offering them unique preparation tailored to their individual career trajectories.

The Africa Study Visit remains an indispensable pedagogical model that not only bridges the gap between theoretical learning and practical application but also fosters deep, transformative engagement with the complexities of post-conflict development. As demonstrated through the 2024 Tunisia Study Visit, the ASV challenges students to critically reassess their assumptions, confront epistemological dilemmas, and develop a nuanced understanding of governance, peacebuilding, and social change. While the evolving landscape of higher education presents new challenges – ranging from shifting student engagement to the isolating effects of digitalisation – the ASV’s immersive, collective learning model continues to offer an invaluable counterbalance. Placing students in direct dialogue with local actors and communities ensures that international development education remains both contextually relevant and ethically grounded. Looking ahead, the sustainability of the ASV will depend on its ability to adapt while retaining its core mission: to equip future development practitioners with the skills, sensitivity, and reflexivity needed to navigate an increasingly complex global landscape. As we often say, the ASV is not about finding all the answers – it’s about learning to ask better questions.