The learning goal of this assignment is to foster greater awareness of the concept of cultural imperialism, and how this concept may direct and shape land use in many indigenous communities around the world. One way to define cultural imperialism is to see it as "the process of imperialist control aided and abetted by importing supportive forms of culture, such as transmission of ideas and ways of thinking from one culture to another, when this transmission has the effect of privileging a dominant cultural perspective" (Jones, et al., 2018).

Since the notion of cultural imperialism pre-conditions that cultural communities exhibit different values and perspectives, and one culture's value is treated as the dominant one over others, discussion of this concept takes learning of cultural values, such as individualism vs. collectivism, to the next level where students can begin to see the historical, cultural and political impact when cultures come in contact and interact with one another. In a meaningful way, students can get a chance to examine power dynamics between cultures, when they collect and analyze evidence of such domination.

A second key learning goal is for students to understand the cultural value continuum of mastery vs. adaptive towards nature. In his book, The Values Americans Live By, Kohls (1980) identified this continuum, which speculates that some cultural communities support the use of land and other natural resources for economic ends, and in so doing, they reflect a "mastery perspective" towards nature. Some other communities behold nature as the source and root of their cultural being, and that they "adapt" to nature rather than control, own, or alter any elements of nature because of this belief. This cultural value continuum, mastery vs. adaptive towards nature, relates closely to the indigenous communities that students visit virtually. During their virtual visits, they are exposed to a variety of cases where a Western mastery perspective has been introduced as the dominant perspective over the local belief of adapting to nature. The virtual tour provides a meaningful learning moment to examine cultural imperialism in the local context in the Philippines and Malaysia.

These explorations of cultural imperialism, situated within the case in indigenous communities from The Philippines and Malaysia, connect well to several "big ideas" or key concepts related to climate change and sustainability, which students will also explore.

• Indigenous Traditional Knowledge: students will learn how indigenous traditional knowledge towards nature has been disregarded as dated, irrelevant, and needing revision.
• Inter-generational Thinking / Intra-generational Thinking: students will learn how, in some indigenous traditional communities, incoming Western ideology undermines traditional values, which leads to difficulty maintaining traditional ways of life between and within generations.
• Food security: students will learn how in some indigenous traditional communities, what to grow and how to grow those crops are under strict redirection given from outside of the community and in some cases, outsiders' economic interests are forcing indigenous community members to grow economic crops (such as rubber trees) as opposed to their traditional crops.
• Climate change/ climate justice: students gaining an introductory understanding of possible climate change impacts in the Philippines and Malaysia.

Improving on written communication skills: students will learn ways improving on developing content in a disciplinary specific context, with demonstrated success using sources and evidence supporting their conclusions. Students' writing will be evaluated using the VALUE rubric of written communication developed by the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AACU).

This assignment is for the course, CMST 280 Intercultural Communication, where a significant amount of content is situated within the notion of culture, elements of culture, and how cultural similarities and differences impact our daily life experience, with a small to medium class size (10-30 students). It is best suited for the course identified here, but could be adapted to any other humanities or environmental/sustainability studies course that focuses on culture, privilege, and power dynamics with a 100- or 200-level. There is no 100-level course or pre-requisite preceding this course.

The virtual visit opportunity provided through Google Earth Voyager project offers flexibility to deliver the learning experience either in-person or online (synchronous or asynchronous sessions). To accommodate students with different levels of access to and familiarity with technology, I ask students to write a brief informal reflection, in which I ask about students' experience after the virtual tour: what they have learned, and what might be their initial thoughts, any questions they have about accessing the tours, before I ask them to move into a more structured discussion posting.

Ideally before this assignment, students will have already been introduced to the notion of culture, elements of culture, and the worldview continuums as one way to reflect similarities and differences regarding cultural values and norms. One such continuum specifically deals with communities' cultural perspectives towards nature: mastery vs. adaptive. For students studying a cultural community's orientation along this continuum, they could ask members of this cultural community: do you as a community prefer to adapt to nature, because nature is part of your cultural roots and cultural self, or do you prefer to control, own, or alter elements of nature to the benefit of humans?

The virtual visits to multiple local indigenous communities in Malaysia and the Philippines will give students opportunities to identify a variety of cultural perspectives towards nature, from local indigenous communities and from incoming outsiders, and which perspective is introduced as the dominant perspective that shapes local people's life experience.

Activity Overview: This is a multi-step activity that can be delivered in-person or remotely, with a small-medium class size (20-35 students). The activity comprises three parts: encountering the virtual tour, reflecting and writing in response to prompting questions, and engaging in an online discussion with classmates. You can customize how the three parts fit into the week-long learning process. I recommend one full week for successful completion of the activity.

During this week, every student should have at least 60 minutes with access to a computer and stable access to the Internet to complete the virtual tours. This can be done during a 60-minute class session in a campus computer lab where every student has access to a computer. This could also be done remotely, in which case students can complete the virtual tour on their own when they can.

Part One: the Virtual Tours

Purpose and theme

The virtual tours can be implemented in-person or remotely in either synchronous or asynchronous mode. In both cases, students can explore either on their own individually, as a pair, or as a small group.

Students are invited to think about answers to the following questions during their tour, and it is best for students to take notes on their own answers for reference for later discussion posting write-up:

• Who are the people, groups, or communities you met virtually during your tour?
• Can you identify some things that are important to them?
• When it comes to a cultural perspective regarding nature, either mastery or adaptive, can you make a speculation about where each of the communities stand along this worldview continuum? What evidence helped you make this speculation?
• Have you ever looked into issues related to climate change in those countries? If so, what do you already know?

Steps of the virtual tours

1. Watch YouTube video - first watch the video, LEGATO - Land-use intensity and ecological engineering rice-based production systems (see URL in References and Resources, below), to encounter the case in Ifugao, in the Philippines. In this indigenous community, the very intention of protecting the local rice terrace by listing the site as a UNESCO World Heritage site has attracted an influx of tourists, which in turn challenged the local traditional understanding of land-use and a cultural value system closely related to such land-use.

2. Google Earth Voyager Project: Orang Asal Indigenous Lands of Malaysia
Please click on the link (see URL in References and Resources, below) for the Google Earth Voyager case on the Orang Asal Indigenous Lands of Malaysia, to learn about many tribes of the Orang Asal, the Indigenous peoples of Malaysia, and how they cope with ecotourism. Students are successful landing on the Google Earth Voyager project when they see the blue button of "explore" located at the lower left corner on their screen. Once students click on the blue button of "explore", they will be taken virtually to Malaysia and can learn about many tribes' experiences there by going through the Voyager slides on the right side of the screen.

There are many tribes in the Google Earth Voyager presentation, such as the Jakun village of Kampung Peta in Ulu Endau (on voyager slide #2), and the Semai community of Kampung Ulu Semul in Pahang (on Voyager slide #3). There are success stories, as well as struggles, explained in images and videos. To continue with the four reflection questions, students will select two tribes from the Orang Asal indigenous Lands of Malaysia and compare their experiences with the Ifugao case in the Philippines. Ideally, students will select one tribe who has successful stories and one tribe who is going through struggles.

Once students watch the video on Ifugao and visit at least two tribes in the Philippines and take notes in response to the question prompts they have completed part one.

Part Two: Reflection - Cultural Imperialism: How do We Define it?

Purpose and Theme

This part highlights an opportunity to foster further understanding of cultural imperialism, a concept that is ideally introduced earlier in the same week. Reflection can be completed via class discussions, small group discussion, or individual reflection writing, either in-person or remote.

Students will also be given the opportunity to search online for more information regarding "climate change in Malaysia" and "climate change in the Philippines". This additional research will support their understanding of cultural imperialism in the context of the cases explored in those two countries. 

Steps of Reflection

I use the following questions to guide the learning process:

-In your virtual tour, have you identified more than one cultural perspective towards nature? What makes you think that way?

-Would you say that there's one cultural perspective that enjoys greater power (that is, local policies pertaining to land-use are mostly reflecting this perspective), and the other cultural perspective seem as irrelevant or dated?  What made you think this way?

-Cultural imperialism is "the process of imperialist control aided and abetted by importing supportive forms of culture, such as transmission of ideas and ways of thinking from one culture to another, when this transmission has the effect of privileging a dominant cultural perspective (Jones, et al., 2018)". Based on your virtual tour, would you say that you saw evidence of cultural imperialism in play for this indigenous community you examined? Why or why not?

-What additional information could you could share with the class, based on your research on climate change in Malaysia and the Philippines? Is there any more you'd like to know at this point, and how might you find more?

I encourage students to take notes on their answers to these questions, for reference during their later discussion posting write-ups.

Part Three: Discussion posting - Land Use and Cultural Imperialism: Cases from Malaysia and the Philippines.

I collect students' discussion postings either online or in hard copy. I use the following questions to guide students through the writing process.

[Claim] Among all the cases you studied, which two tribes have you selected from the Orang Asal Indigenous Lands of Malaysia? Which Voyager slide are they each on? Among these two communities and the Ifugao in The Philippines, would you say that a variety of a culturally distinctive perspectives towards nature, either mastery or adaptive, are present across all three of them?

[Definition] With correct citation, can you share the definition of this cultural perspective towards nature, either master or adaptive, in your posting? Can you use your own words to describe your understanding of this cultural continuum?

[Example] Please describe specific details from all three cases (two tribes from Malaysia and Ifugao in the Philippines). Use the details to explain, regarding the worldview continuum, mastery vs. adaptive to nature.  Do you see one cultural perspective seen as the dominant one, while the other seen as dated or irrelevant? How so? Please refer to the definition of cultural imperialism introduced in this class. Did you see evidence of cultural imperialism? Why or why not?

[Opinion] As a form of environmental justice, climate justice is "the fair treatment of all people and the freedom from discrimination in the creation of policies and projects that address climate change as well as the systems that create climate change and perpetuate discrimination" (Bartholomew, 2015, para. 2). The communities you visited through the virtual tour might appear remote from your daily life, but we are all connected within one ecosystem and one global society. At the end of the day, as global citizens, we can try a variety of strategies to offer culturally responsive solutions to the challenges around the world. Please identify one challenge from the following climate-justice issues you see as relevant to the communities you visited virtually, and write a paragraph reflecting how you might plan to discuss this issue within your social circle, with references made to those indigenous communities. While writing up this paragraph, you could imagine you were sitting at the dinner table (with your family), posting on social media (for your friends and others to read), or speaking up in class (to your classmates and instructor).

-Indigenous Traditional Knowledge: [hint] think about how indigenous traditional knowledge towards nature has been disregarded as dated, irrelevant or otherwise needing revision.

-Inter-generational Thinking / Intra-generational Thinking: [hint] think about how in some indigenous traditional communities, incoming Western ideology undermines traditional values, which leads to difficulty maintaining traditional way of life between and within generations.

-Food security: [hint] think about how in some indigenous traditional communities, what to grow and how to grow those crops are under strict redirection given from outside of the community and in some cases, communities are strongly encouraged or forced to grow economic crops (such as rubber trees) as opposed to their traditional crops, because of the outsiders' economic interests.

[Extra Credit]
You could earn extra credits if you visit Project Drawdown, a website with resources focusing on solutions to climate change challenges. For the sector on Food, Agriculture, and Land Use https://drawdown.org/sectors/food-agriculture-land-use you can see many solutions. In view of your before-mentioned climate justice issue, can you select one solution and discuss how this solution might provide a better balance between the variety of cultural perspectives towards nature, and perhaps even helps to mitigate the impact from cultural imperialism in a local community you visited?

In addition, you could also earn extra credits if you turn in notes documenting your thoughts during the virtual tour and the reflection.

Excitement: students are excited with the opportunity of a virtual tour; the tour experience is interactive, intuitive, and engaging.

Inclusion and accuracy: the Google Earth Voyager Project takes students to communities they would not otherwise visit, and includes brief introductions, images, and videos for most communities, usually made from local community members' perspective.

Fun with names: students sometimes struggle to remember all the different names of local indigenous communities. Tell them that this is the case with almost everyone and encourage them take notes during the virtual tour so that they can recall specific names.

Physical side effects: some students may experience dizziness as the Google Earth Voyager Project transition from one location to another on the Google Map. I advise them to do whatever that works for them: look away during the transition, for instance, to avoid the side effects.

I evaluate each student's written responses using the category of "Content Development", "Sources and Evidence" and "Control of Syntax and Mechanics" from the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AACU) VALUE rubrics, included in the attachment.I evaluate each student's responses using the categories of "Content Development," "Sources and Evidence," and "Control of Syntax and Mechanics" from the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AACU) VALUE rubrics, included in the attachment.

A sample posting demonstrating capstone performance is also included as attachment.

Value rubrics – Written Communication, American Association of Colleges and Universities (AACU) (Microsoft Word 111kB Feb27 22)
Sample Response (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 18kB Feb27 22)

AACU (2022). Value rubrics – Written Communication, American Association of Colleges and Universities (AACU), retrieved Jan. 2022 at https://www.aacu.org/initiatives/value-initiative/value-rubrics/value-rubrics-written-communication

Bartholomew, Shannon (2015). What does Climate Justice Mean to You? Climate Generation, retrieved Sep 15 2021 at https://www.climategen.org/blog/what-does-climate-justice-mean-to-you/

Centre for Environmental Research [UFZ]. (2013). LEGATO - Land-use intensity and ecological engineering rice based production systems [Video file]. Youtube. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNdRo1P7aGI

Drawdown.org (2021). Indigenous Peoples' Forest Tenure, Drawdown Solutions, retrieved Aug 31, 2021 at https://drawdown.org/solutions/indigenous-peoples-forest-tenure

Jones, Peter, Miles, Debra and Gopalkrishman, Narayan (2018). Intercultural Learning: Critical Preparation for International Student Travel [eBook], University of Technology Sydney ePress, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Kohls, L Robert (1984). The Values Americans Live By, Meridian House International.

Orang Asal Indigenous Lands of Malaysia. (n.d.). [Google Earth Voyager Interactive Map]. Retrieved from https://earth.google.com/web/@4.88606303,101.68904772,330.28729557a,1479259.56d,35y,0.367h,0t,0r/data=CjASLhIgMDcwYzRiODU4YjhkMTFlOWE4YWI5YjM3OGM0MDY2MWQiCnZveV9zcGxhc2g