2012 Seminar Brochure

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2012 Seminar Brochure CARLETON COLLEGE EL MUNDO MAYA: Winter 2012 Socio-Cultural Field Research Seminar in Guatemala and Chiapas PROGRAM DATES Latin American Studies or another related field. The program begins with an introduction to Guatemala The group returns to the highlands to explore central The Program will take place during winter term of and the Maya. Based in a rustic mountain lodge Chiapas. The program will be based in the picturesque overlooking the beautiful colonial city of Antigua, colonial city of San Cristobal de las Casas. In the 2012. INTRODUCTION initial days of orientation and team building will be neighboring Tzotzil community of San Juan Chamula, Both Guatemala and the neighboring state of Chiapas, followed by excursions to Guatemala City for lectures students will attend the Maya celebration of Carnaval, DIRECTOR Mexico are lands of stunning physical beauty, cultural on community action and human rights, a visit to the a complex ceremonial, coinciding with the Jerome Levi, Professor of Anthropology and Chair of diversity, and stark socio-economic contrasts. With its National Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, a five “lost days” in the ancient solar calendar, that each the Department of Sociology and Anthropology population comprised of 23 ethnic groups—some 22 trip to the Parque Central, and a night hike to the year symbolically reestablishes cosmic order. Next, Jay Levi led Carleton’s Guatemala and Chiapas indigenous Mayan linguistic groups and the spectacular Pacaya Volcano. The program then heads students will learn first-hand about the Zapatista program in winter 2006, 2008, and 2010, and was the economically and politically dominant ladinos— to Lake Atitlán, the jewel of highland Guatemala. rebellion and the ongoing struggle for indigenous Director of Latin American Studies, 2003-2006. He Guatemala has long been known for its rich local Ringed by smoking volcanoes and over a dozen rights by living and working for several days in an has taught at Carleton since 1993 and conducted cultural traditions. But it is also marked by extreme ethnographic research on Mesoamerica for nearly inequalities and poverty. Today, after decades of a indigenous villages along its northern and western autonomous Zapatista community. three decades, initially focusing on the Tzotzil Maya brutal civil war, Guatemalans struggle to build a shores, here students will augment their classroom knowledge of Mesoamerican cultures with practice- Returning to Lake Atitlán, Guatemala, students devote in the Chiapas highlands and later on the Tarahumara nation based on the multilingual and pluricultural (Rarámuri) of southwest Chihuahua. His teaching and based field experiences to help them begin planning the last three weeks of the program to conducting their principles mandated by the 1996 Peace Accords. independent field research projects and writing up research interests are in the areas of indigenous rights, the independent research projects they’ll undertake the anthropology of religion, ethnicity, economic and In many ways the cultural history of Chiapas is similar among local Tzutuhil or Kaqchikel people at the end their findings. Students will live with families in indigenous communities around the lake in which they environmental anthropology. He recently served as to Guatemala’s. It too is known for vibrant indigenous of the program. carry out their field projects. The field sites provide the Editor for Mesoamerican Ethnology for the cultures and glaring inequalities between its many During the next two weeks the group will be opportunities for research on topics such as sustainable Library of Congress’s Handbook of Latin American Mayan peoples and the dominant ladinos. Yet the occasionally “roughing it” as its attention shifts to the development, conservation, women’s issues, human Studies, and contributed to the Oxford Encyclopedia of recent struggles for indigenous rights here, after the Maya tropical forest where students will explore the rights work, the role of religion, ethnomedicine and Mesoamerican Cultures. Zapatista Army of National Liberation mounted an jungles of northern Guatemala, known as El Petén, and healing, grassroots community organization, insurrection in 1994 that gained international attention, eastern Chiapas. Focusing on Maya cultural ecology, ecotourism, and other topics. In the final week, PREREQUISITES also differs from Guatemala’s. In the same year that prehistory, and contemporary lowland cultures, the students analyze their field data, write their reports, This program is designed for students who are Guatemala signed its Peace Accords, a treaty was group will travel overland as well as along the Pasión and present their findings to the group in a concluding interested in the Mayan peoples of Guatemala and signed in San Andres, Chiapas between the Zapatistas and Usumacinta Rivers to visit some of the most research colloquium. Chiapas, Mexico, the cultural ecology, religions, and the Mexican government, and although there have archaeology, history and ethnology of the region, as been many setbacks there are also signs of hope in important archaeological sites in the Maya world, well as social change and development in Latin Mexico’s construction of a pluricultural society and including Tikal, Palenque, Yaxchilán, Bonampák, COURSE OF STUDY, 18 CREDITS Seibal, and Uaxactun. As the program moves through America. Students will undertake independent field transition to democracy after 71 years of single party All coursework counts towards Latin American Studies the Montes Azules and Maya Biosphere Reserves, research focused on these topics. To participate in the rule. major or concentration program, students must have completed comprising the largest tropical rainforest in Central Sociology/Anthropology 110 or 111 by January 2012. Through coursework and independent research, this America, students will learn about the relation SOAN 251: Resource Management, The ability to communicate effectively in Spanish, as program provides students with the opportunity to between Maya population booms, environmental Community Development, and Social Change collapse, and current efforts at sustainable indicated by advanced work in Spanish beyond examine, from an anthropological perspective, issues in Guatemala and Chiapas of cultural continuity, resource management, and development. In eastern Chiapas, students will spend Spanish 204 or its equivalent, is also necessary to the (4 credits) participant’s success in conducting field research in social change in Guatemala and Chiapas. This several days living among the Lacandones, the most This course counts towards ENTS concentration the Guatemalan highland. The instructor reserves the program examines the region’s people attempt to come isolated and culturally conservative indigenous people This course explores contemporary strategies for right to issue special permission to interested students to terms with social inequality, human rights abuses, in Mesoamerica, seldom visited until the second half survival in Maya lands in the face of the global who have not taken Sociology/Anthropology 110 or and sustainable development in an effort to build a of the 20th century. economy by examining how community groups, 111, but who have equivalent prepatory work in multi-ethnic society. entrepreneurs, peasant organizations, niche markets, social movements, government and non-governmental SOAN 290: Directed Reading (2 Credits) organizations play important roles in promoting During winter break 2011-2012, participants are asked economic betterment, social justice, locally based to read selected works chosen to provide background decision making, and more equitable, environmentally on Guatemalan history, Mayan culture, and sound, sustainable development. Through readings, contemporary social issues in preparation for the field lectures, interviews, and direct community seminar. Students will write an integrative essay on engagement with human rights activists, conservation this material and participate in discussions covering experts, development practitioners, and both farmers the readings during the first week of the program. and foragers in the Maya tropical forest, students will Instructor: Professor Levi learn about the complex interplay between cultural ecology, resource management, and community EXPENSES revitalization. Students pay the 2011-2012 Carleton comprehensive Instructor: Professor Levi fee, which covers the cost of instruction, room, board, all program events, and transportation from Guatemala SOAN 241: Mesoamerican Cultures to Chiapas. Students are responsible for the cost of (6 Credits) transportation from the U.S. to Guatemala City and for Mesoamerica, a major area of pre-Columbian return transportation to the U.S. at the conclusion of civilization, is a region generally extending from the seminar. Participants are also responsible for around the Tropic of Cancer in Mexico to purchase of books, personal items, independent travel northwestern Costa Rica. This course will examine during term, personal field gear such as tape recorders, both ancient and modern peoples of Mesoamerica, and personal travel during the seminar. with special reference to the Maya peoples of Winter 2012 Guatemala and southern Mexico. Students will cover APPLICATIONS & INFORMATION MEETINGS topics including economic, social, political, and Application forms are available from the Office of religious organization as well as cosmology and Off-Campus Studies, Leighton 119 or on the OCS EL MUNDO MAYA:
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