“I Have Karelia in My Soul” : Intra-action of Students, Seniors and Artefacts in a Community-Engaged Service-Learning Collaboration

Abstract

In this chapter we examine a foreign language learning environment in a community-engaged setting in a Canadian city through a new materialist lens. As part of a service-learning project, Canadian students of Finnish language and culture visit a Finnish language seniors’ centre regularly to participate in different activities and spend time with the Finnish-speaking seniors. We examine the assemblage of the participants (seniors and students) and one artefact, a map, and offer a close analysis of the intra-action that takes place during one visit at the centre. In our analysis, our service-learning collaboration does not merely give a voice and agency to seniors. Rather, the seniors actively take the opportunity to voice their knowledge, and doing that, give a voice to an old Finnish school map, which retells stories of the seniors’ past in intra-action. Meanwhile the students also gain new knowledge.