The Butterfly Effect. Reflections of A Caribbean Practitioner-Scholar Flitting Through Time and Space
The small and un-associated,
The connected and intertwined.
Through time and space we collide
Often through measures seemingly unaligned.
To live in a time unfolding
Watching from the sidelines,
Yet, all we experience associated
Throughout all of space and time.
The Butterfly Effect; the phenomenon coined by Edward Lorenz in the 1960s suggests that tiny, seemingly insignificant actions in one moment or place generate major shifts in another space or time. The wing-beat of a butterfly in one corner of the world, according to Lorenz, could set into motion a hurricane or other major activity in another distanced space. The potential upending chaos which forms from one action can shift the trajectory of so many things. Lately, I have been reflecting on this, and how my goals as an early-career, Caribbean practitioner-scholar in service-learning & community engagement (SLCE) are being influenced. Global movements, far beyond my control have quietly and not-so-quietly reshaped my aspirations. As we enter into a new year I have been reminiscing even more on the past year and its ripples.
Since graduating from my doctoral program in 2024, my life has taken many unexpected twists and turns and I cannot help but reflect on the connecting threads of present day life. At times, it’s a sense of watching on from the sidelines as I see my goals flitting and drifting, carried by winds stirred in spaces outside of my circle of control. In 2024, as I prepared for graduation and envisioned the possibilities of an academic career in SLCE, I could not have imagined how drastically the field could would shift by 2025, due in large part to changes occurring in a single part of the world. Entering 2025 has further highlighted this, particular as a Caribbean practitioner-scholar based in Trinidad and Tobago where on a good day, I can look out into the horizon and see the coastline of Venezuela in the distance.
In scholarly international spaces, when thinking of SLCE as a pedagogy, attention often turns to emerging from the United States. Over time, SLCE in the United States has come to be positioned as a hub of theory building, communities of practice, institutional models, and international funding. For decades, the United States has led the academic charge and been positioned as a stalwart in SLCE; a hub of theory building, communities of practice, institutional best-practice, scholarly exchange and international funding. Many of us in the field, myself included, have been shaped by the intellectual currents and discourse, finding inspiration which may not be as readily found in our home settings. Within the Caribbean, for example, practices of community engagement, social justice advocacy, and collective responsibility have long existed as lived realities rather than named pedagogies. The formal articulation of SLCE remains emergent and unevenly recognised; often peripheral within academic Caribbean spaces. The United States therefore stood as a beacon for what investment and commitment on a large scale to community-engaged scholarship and institutional support of service-learning pedagogy could look like.
It is unsurprising then, that the effects of a single policy decision in Washington, through legislative amendment and shifts in political tone, could send shockwaves across the globe. What started as an amendment in late 2020 in Washington, re-emerged in 2025 rippling through time and space within the SLCE field. The 1776 Commission (The White House, 2021) which was established in September 2020 was the wing-beat of U.S education amendments with a directive towards changes in the education curriculum which rippled through time and space in the SLCE field. These amendments continued into 2025 with changes made to K-12 curriculum (The White House, 2025). There have concerns regarding this policy change, which some identified to have potential to erase histories of marginalized persons and their voices in hard fought political discourses within the United States (Adams, 2021; Binkley & Miller, 2025). Coupled with broader, global socio-political turbulence threatening academic freedom, representation in scholarly work and pedagogical values, the very foundations of SLCE feel caught in violent winds.
In the subsequent recent months, we have seen colleagues and friends in the United States face closure of community engagement offices and/or shrinking budgets for community-engaged activities. We have heard of language redaction and prescribed censorship, occurring in the very country that houses many of the field’s leading academic journals, networks and scholarly communities. While these appear to be a domestic matter, to those of us who live and work outside of the United States, especially in smaller and often overlooked regions such as the Caribbean, they reverberate like not-so-distant thunder. The butterfly’s wing-beat creates storms elsewhere.
In the midst of these shifting winds and storms, I found myself battling my own internal storms and what seems like the uncomfortable truth; the butterfly effect is not just some distant theory. It is rather now deeply personal for myself and possibly many other recent graduates with scholarly pursuits in the field of SLCE. We are now faced with a new reckoning as we navigate the field. As a Caribbean practitioner-scholar, I am acutely aware of how much my career options have narrowed, shifted, or been placed on hold due to policy decisions I had no hand in and technically should be far removed from. My career goals are now mixed with feelings of apprehension and concerted efforts to reshape my academic identity as I navigate the “what’s next?”
I have become more cautious in how I write, how I articulate myself, and even how I position my work. I am hyper-aware that language which was once celebrated in academic circles may now be scrutinized, politicized, or even quietly punished. There is a flutter of fear that I can be academically blacklisted; it is not abstract. This flutter of fear is tied to practical realities of immigration systems, visa requirements, and the fragile system of permission that non-U.S. scholars must navigate and negotiate to simply cross borders for research, conferences, or employment.
As a Caribbean practitioner-scholar who has flitted across continents; learning, teaching and engaging with communities from Beijing, to New Orleans to Port-of-Spain, I have come to see our field as a truly delicate and interconnected ecological system. The fragility of that ecosystem and the storms which could potentially topple the system, now even more apparent. Though I live far from Washington, the storm doesn’t feel distant. The wing-beats are felt across the oceans and plains. My actions, aspirations and long-term planning are caught in winds stirred by a single legislative measure. These winds have not only unsettled institutions but individual lives. I feel this even more acutely as I sit today with what is unfolding in neighbouring Venezuela and consider the implications for my home, Trinidad and Tobago, and the wider Caribbean. In moments like these, I find myself asking what SLCE in the Caribbean now looks like for social activists, practitioners, scholars, and educators working amid heightened regional uncertainty. How do we engage communities, conduct research, and teach with integrity when militarisation creeps closer to our waters and borders? Our spaces now marked by the quiet presence of bases, radar systems, and other forms of military infrastructure not our own; how do we engage? These are not abstract questions, but lived considerations that will shape how we move, write, and act within the region. This is the chaos which Lorenz spoke of: a single wing-beat of a butterfly altering an entire weather system.
Yet, in the midst of this turbulence, I remind myself, and you the readers, that the butterfly effect is not solely destructive. If one small action can unsettle a system, it also has the potential to reimagine it. This may be the moment in history for those of us in the peripheries; geographically, politically, institutionally and socio-economically, to generate new currents. This may be our time to reimagine the trajectories of SLCE. It’s a time to build networks that are less dependent on a single centre, opening up our wings to create changing winds.
The storm may seem fierce, but we are not without wings that can also flutter profoundly.
Reference list
Adams, C. (2021, May 10). How Trump ignited the fight over critical race theory in schools. NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/how-trump-ignited-fight-over-critical-race-theory-schools-n1266701
Binkley, C., & Miller, Z. (2025, January 30). Trump’s orders take aim at critical race theory and antisemitism on college campuses | AP News. AP News. https://apnews.com/article/trump-critical-race-theory-antisemitism-college-protests-18136b8c8f5adb9c75c47907e020268a
The White House. (2021, January 18). 1776 Commission takes historic and scholarly step to restore understanding of the greatness of the American founding. National Archives. https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefings-statements/1776-commission-takes-historic-scholarly-step-restore-understanding-greatness-american-founding/
The White House. (2025, January 5). Ending radical indoctrination in K-12 schooling. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/ending-radical-indoctrination-in-k-12-schooling/
Editors’ Note: This blog post was updated on 01/06/26 to reflect the recent events in Venezuela.
Dr. Shilohna K. Phillanders is a Caribbean-born educator and practitioner-scholar passionate about community engagement, student empowerment, and reflective teaching. Her work moves between continents, communities, and questions of justice; shaped by experiences across Asia and North America with a deep belief in the power of critical inquiry grounded in the narrative traditions of the Caribbean. She is the recipient of the 2025 IARSLCE Dissertation Award and the creator of ‘echo-autoethnography’, a methodological approach that blends reflexive narrative with critical educational analysis. Rooted in her global academic journey and Caribbean heritage, Shilohna writes from the in-between spaces; geographical, cultural, and scholarly, where transformation stirs and new possibilities quietly resound. She often finds herself seeking the quiet pulse of connection beneath the world’s noise, tracing the delicate places where identity, pedagogy, and possibility intertwine.
