Heritage Ethnography Field School

  Mexico

• Central Highlands: 
Valladolid
• Yucatan Peninsula: 
Playa del Carmen,  Puerto Morelos,  Merida,  Tulum

Term: Summer 
Dates: Mid-May to Early July

Description: OSEA Heritage Ethnography Field School provides training in ethnographic field work and research methods. The program is open to undergraduate and graduate students in any social science and humanities field, as well as to post-baccalaureates.

Participants enroll in two courses. The core seminar provides an anthropological approach and the analytical foundations for understanding and investigating heritage in local and global contexts.

The ethnographic methods and fieldwork practicum consists of three components. One unit is an intensive introduction to spoken Maya language for use in the conduct of fieldwork. The second unit is a classroom seminar in which ethnographic methods are presented and discussed. The goal is for students to design practical research projects on heritage issue in the Maya communities in the region of Chichen Itza. The third component is the fieldwork practicum in which students actually conduct the ethnographic research they have designed. The fieldwork is closely supervised and punctuated with participation in a fieldwork forum or workshop in which students discuss their successes and difficulties and a student "conference" presentation of their research results.

Participants can choose to do ethnographic projects with a traditional research agenda or as an applied/action-based research. Projects are designed as individual fieldwork or as collaborative research articulated to the ongoing investigation of heritage and tourism development in the Piste-Chichen Itza socioeconomic micro-region.

Highlights:
Summer: 7 week program
Dates: May 17 to July 4, 2009; mid/late May to early July 2010, 2011.
Start: day of arrival on-site and orientation meeting
End: earliest date of departure for successful completion of program
Location: Piste and Chichen Itza, Yucatan, Mexico
Credits: 8 credit hours, at undergraduate or graduate level
3 credits: "Seminar in Heritage Ethnography"
5 credits: "Ethnographic Methods and Field Research Practicum"

Transcripts: Direct Enrollment students receive accredited transcripts from OSEA partner institution in Mexico, the Universidad Autonoma de Yucatan

Lodging: Home-stays provide linguistic and cultural immersion; options for lodging and food in family-run posadas are available at an additional cost. Families are carefully selected based on the Program Director's 24 years of experience in the community of Piste. Participants are required to purchase a hammock for sleeping in homestays.

Other Details:

The program begins with intensive language training and a core seminar on heritage that provides participants the linguistic skills and conceptual tools to conduct fieldwork in Maya communities on heritage issues. Heritage is conceived as an inclusive domain that includes social processes and problems involving archaeological heritage development, tourism, sustainability, community participation and control of development, state policy and strategies of tourism, intangible cultural heritage such as handicrafts production and art markets, Maya medicine and systems of health and healing, urbanism and environmental heritage.

Degree Level: Bachelors Degree (Undergraduate)

Cost in US$: Cost: USD 3700 for Direct OSEA Enrollment

Experience Required: no

This Program is open to American and Worldwide Participants.

Participants Travel to Mexico Independently

Typically Participants Work Independently

Application Process Involves:

• Essay
• Letters of Reference
• Resume
• Transcript

The Open School of Ethnography and Anthropology's Mission Statement: OSEA provides training to individuals and communities in the ethnography of the future and prepares students in degree programs in cultural anthropology and related human science fields; as well as professionals, community groups, and other interested individuals, with hands-on, on-site, intensive training in ethnographic research that promotes professional advancement, personal growth, and collective goals.

Year Founded: 1997