OSEA-CITE: Ethnography of the Future / Interdisciplinary Cultural Anthropology / Study Abroad. Quetzil Castaneda, Juan Castillo Cocom, Christine Preble, Patricia Fortuny de Loret de Mola, ethnography yucatan, Edy Dzidz, Universidad Intercultural Maya de Quintana Roo, UIMQRoo, Jose Maria Morelos, Learn Maya language, learning Mayan language, eco tourism, Chichen Itza,

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People

Faculty and Research Associates

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Quetzil E. Castañeda, Director and Professor
Brandon Fischer, Assistant Director, OSEA CITE    (2016)
Edy Dzidz, Maya Instructor (2012-), Community     Liaison and Assistant Director Field School
Matt Breines, SELT Coordinator(2011 and 2014)     and OSEA Alum (2009)
Alicia Buckenmeyer, SELT Coordinator (2014) and     OSEA Alum (2013)
Christine Preble, Assistant Director (2010-2013)
Patricia Fortuny, Faculty Associate
Jennifer Mathews, Faculty Associate
Russel Yam Caamal, Community Associate
Victor Olalde, Community Associate
Gabrielle Acquaro, Spanish Instructor (2012) and     OSEA Alum (2010)
Sootz, Puppy (2015)
SELT Coordinator & Spanish Instructors
    Meg Cychosz (2013)
    Ashley Sherry (2012)
    Megan Solon (2010)


 




Founding Director and Associate Professor, OSEA

 

Quetzil E. Castañeda
PhD 1991, University at Albany, SUNY
BA 1983, Cornell

Founding Director and Associate Professor, OSEA

Lecturer, Latin American & Caribbean Studies (CLACS), Indiana University

Convenor (2013-2016), Anthropology of Tourism Interest Group, American Anthropology Association
Board Member (2012-2015), Society for Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology (AAA)
Editor, Boas Project, volume on Mexican Correspondence


CONTACT
812-669.1369 office
812-327-5845
skype account name "quetzil"
quetzil@osea-cite.org

» Research
» Teaching
» Publications
» Grants and Awards
» Download current vita (pdf)

Quetzil Castañeda is founding director of OSEA – the Open School of Ethnography and Anthropology, an independent, non-degree school that offers field study abroad, writing workshops, research methods, conferences, and consulting services -- http://www.osea-cite.org . He has over 20 years of experience conducting research in México on identity politics, heritage, tourism, anthropology of art, ethics, visual ethnography, applied anthropology, language revitalization, and representation. In addition to his work at OSEA, Quetzil has been a lecturer in the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies at Indiana University since 2010. Castañeda has previously taught at Princeton, University of Hawai'i, University of Houston, and the Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán in México in History, Latino Studies, Latin American Studies, Spanish Literature, Sociology and Anthropology departments. Castañeda’s publications include a landmark study of tourism and archaeology, In the Museum of Maya Culture (Univ. Minnesota Press 1996), two edited volumes Estrategias Identitarias (SEP & OSEA, 2004), and Ethnographic Archaeologies (AltaMira Press, 2008), more than thirty articles and book chapters, and an award winning ethnographic film, Incidents of Travel in Chichén Itzá (DER 1997). Castañeda’s areas of expertise include anthropology of tourism, heritage, identity, ethnography of archaeology, ethics, historical ethnography, visual anthropology, Maya language, Maya culture, México, Guatemala, and New Age spiritualism.

Quetzil founded and directed the independent Field School in Experimental Ethnography (1997-2000) as a way for undergraduate and graduate students to get on-site, hands-on training in ethnography. The Field School gave student researcher-participants the opportunity to conduct collaborative team research in three areas: the transcultural dynamics of teaching English to Maya children, the community history of Pisté in relation to 100 years of anthropological presence, and the contemporary Maya art of Chichén Itzá. The Field School was supported in part by a major grant from the Fideicomiso Mexico-USA, a bi-national organization formed by the Rockefellar Foundation, Bancomer Cultural Foundation and the Mexican Fondo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes (FONCA).

In 2003, Castañeda and Dr. Juan Castillo Cocom collaborated to create the Open School of Ethnography and Anthropology as a non-degree training program focusing on field study abroad programs. In addition to providing anthropological training programs, OSEA also develops and sponsors research conferences and publishing projects.

You may also visit Quetzil's profile on Academia.edu

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Assistant Director OSEA Field School (2016-present), Maya Language Instructor (2012-present) and OSEA Community Liaison

Edber Dzidz Yam
2013, Licenciatura  (BA) en Lengua y Cultura, Universidad Intercultural Maya de Quintana Roo

Lic Tesis:
" Recuerdos para Olvidar: Antropólogos en el Tusik del Siglo XX "

Assistant Director Field School (2016 to present)
Field Research Coordinator (2013-2015)
Maya Instructor (2012- 2016)

CONTACT
edy@osea-cite.org

More About Edy Below

Edy Dzidz combines native, first language knowledge of Maya with a strong anthropological imagination and curiousity of cultural diversity. He has been studying Maya language with UIMQRoo professors where he has developed a great appreciation for the varieties of langauge teaching strategies in terms of performance, interaction, and bodily learning methodologies. As well Edy great interest in the varieties of Maya language not only as dialectical variations across the peninsula from Xul, Yucatan to Bacalar, but in terms of the meta-linguistic strategies about the correct grammar rules, writing conventions, spoken forms, and etymologies. He is voraciously reading up on all the debates about orthographies and syntax. His concern is less what is the correct syntax or writing convention, but what are the reasons for choosing this or that criterion in order to say that this syntax or that orthography rule is the best/correct. Edy is going to be a leading Maya scholar on language and culture. We have the great benefit to be able to bring him on board OSEA to join the Maya teaching staff.

Edy completed his BA or Licienciatura Thesis in August 2013. His thesis is an ethnographic and historical study of memory in the town of Tusik, Quintana Roo. His project was a Community Action Research project in Anthropology in which he worked with the elders of the community of Tusik to recreate new and old memories among community members. OSEA participants benefit from Edy not only in the classroom but by leading us on tours to his native hometown of Tusik to talk with community leaders about what they imagine is the past, present and future of Tusik. Maya language immersion students will be able to opt for spending 2-3 nights in a Quintana Roo community such as Tusik with Edy as their cultural and language mentor.

 


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Assistant Director, OSEA CITE (2016)
Ethnography Instructor

Brandon Melecío Fischer

MA, 2015: The New School for Social Research, Anthropology

MA, 2012: The New School, International Affairs, concentration in development

BA, 2010: St. Mary's University, International Relations and Spanish

CONTACT
brandon@osea-cite.org
Skype: bfischer9

More About Brandon Below.

Brandon Melecío Fischer is an applied anthropologist based in New York City. His research focuses on decolonial, indigenous, and interspecies approaches to social and economic development in Latin America. In this ongoing research, he works at the intersections of the anthropology of development, indigenous studies, and (post)colonial theory. Broadly speaking, Brandon is interested in areas of gender and sexuality, feminist theory, comparative indigeneities, transnational and internal migration, tourism, development, and critical race and ethnicity studies. In his most recent work, he addresses access and barriers to employment for indigenous migrants in the tourism industry within the Yucatán peninsula. As a scholar-practitioner, Brandon is committed to wedding critical theory and scholarship with engaged practice and activism.

 

Brandon's Current Vita (2016)

You can visit Brandon's profile on Academia.edu

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Assistant Director, OSEA Field School (2011-2013)
Faculty Associate (2013-present)

Christine Preble
PhD 2014: University at Albany, Albany, NY. Cultural Anthropology.

MA, 2008: University at Albany, Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies. 

BA, 2006: Siena College, Loudonville, NY. Spanish Education. 

Assistant Director of OSEA and Ethnography Field School Coordinator (2011 - 2013).

Currently Visiting Assistant Professor, Latin American & Caribbean Studies, University at AlbanyUndergraduate Program Director, LACS, University at Albany

CONTACT
cpreble@albany.edu

» Read More About Christine

Current Vita

Christine Preble during her work at OSEA was a doctoral student of cultural anthropology at SUNY Albany. Her MA thesis and short documentary film, North America’s Caribbean Cruise Vacation: The Globalized Authentic, focuses on the globalizing forces of the North American cruise ship industry in the Caribbean. Currently embarking upon dissertation fieldwork in Cozumel, Mexico, she hopes to to spread awareness of the reality of the cruise ship industry and its effects on local populations to help foster mutual understanding between host and guest as well as working closely with residents of host communities to foster positive social and economic change.

Since stepping down from her position as OSEA Assistant Director, Christine has maintained an active role in OSEA as Acaemic Advisor and Research Associate.

Read more about Christine at http://www.albany.edu/lacs/preble.shtml

 

 

 

Community Associates and Liaisons



Russel Yam Caamal
Licensed Tour Guide at Chichén Itzá

Community Liaison

CONTACT

Contact Russel to arrange for a tour of Chichén

» Read More About Russel



Victor Olalde
Licensed Tour Guide at Chichén Itzá

Housing Assistant and Community Liaison
Owner and Mananger of Posada Olalde

CONTACT

Contact Victor to arrange for a tour of Chichén or for lodging at the Posada Olalde
011-[52] (985)-951-0086 landline

» Read More About Victor

Victor Olalde, a resident of Pisté, has been a close associate of Drs. Castañeda and Castillo Cocom for over 20 years. Victor is a licensed tour guide and the owner-operator of the Posada Olalde, which OSEA summer students use as home base while living and working in Chichén Itzá. Victor is a self taught polyglot. In addition to his native Maya and Spanish, he is fluent in English and German and can converse in Italian. Currently he is learning Japanese. Victor's base work is to provide tours to German tourists that arrive in prearranged groups. But he is also available for independent tourists and for providing tours throughout the Yucatán. He has provided special tours to a variety of celebrities and political personages, including Jeb Bush's wife. In addition to this work, Victor is also available for OSEA students as a special cultural liaison, friend, and resource.

 

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SELT Teach English Language Program
SELT is the OSEA School of Experimental Language Training


SELT Program Coordinator, 2014

Alicia Buckemeyer
PhD, 2013-present: University of Virginia. Spanish
MA, 2013: University of Virginia. Spanish
BA, 2009: Ohio University. English
alicia@osea-cite.org

2014 SELT Coordinator and ESL Instructor

Alicia Buckenmeyer is in her first year of
PhD coursework in Spanish at the University of Virginia, where she teaches beginning and intermediate undergraduate Spanish courses
and also volunteers as an ESL teacher in the community. She fell in love with the Yucatan while studying abroad in Mérida as an undergraduate, and since then she has kept returning in various capacities: as a tourist, an English teacher, and even a Maya language student at OSEA!  She is very excited to have
the opportunity to be back among her friends in Pisté  and to work towards developing methods of teaching English that pull on the community's cultural knowledge to make the learning experience both meaningful and practical.

Her academic interests include contemporary Latin American literature and its political and social repercussions, gender studies, identity, languages and cultures in contact, and translation. She is preparing to write a dissertation at least partially focusing on texts written in Maya published alongside authors' self-translations into Spanish. Her non-academic interests include dancing, outdoors activities, and long chats over coffee or drinks

   


CONTACT
alicia@osea-cite.org
» Read More About Alicia


SELT Program Coordinator, 2012

Ashley Sherry
Ph.D. 2011-present. University of Massachusetts Amherst, Anthropology

M.A. 2011 University of New Mexico, Anthropology (Ethnology and Linguistics)

B.A. 2009 Univ. Massachusetts Amherst, magna cum laude, Major: Spanish, Anthropology; Minor: Latin American Studies

2012 SELT Coordinator and Spanish Instructor

CONTACT
ashley@osea-cite.org

» Read More About Ashley
Ashley Sherry is a doctoral student of University of Massachusetts Amherst. Ashley has lived and studied extensively in both Mexico and the United States. In 2009, she received a Bachelor’s degree in Spanish and Anthropology with a certificate in Latin American Studies from UMass. She held a teaching assistant’s position in the Spanish department and served as an English as a second language course assistant for Spanish speaking adults at the local Boys and Girls Club. Ashley developed research skills through community outreach, course work, an international exchange program in Mexico, and ethnographic field excursions focused on human rights in the Dominican Republic and Argentina. She also worked as a research assistant for the Commonwealth Alliance for Information Technology Education. From 2007-2009, Ashley held a position as health educator on a 5-year National Institutes of Health funded study of exercise during pregnancy and the risk of gestational diabetes.

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SELT Program Coordinator, 2011 and 2015

Matt Breines
BA State University of New York Plattsburgh
Career Guidance Counseler, NYC High School

2014 SELT Coordinator and Program Assistant

2011 SELT Coordinator and Teaching Instructor

Matthew Breines recently received his Bachelors degree in Anthropology from SUNY Plattsburgh.  In the summer of 2009, Matthew took part in the OSEA ethnography field school and lived in Pisté, Yucatán, for seven weeks.  Matthew’s study focused on the consumerist practices of tourists in the archeological zone Chichén Itzá.  After working with the artisans and vendors in Chichén Itzá in 2009, Matthew is repaying his “fieldwork debt” by having returned to Pisté and offering language courses in the community.  Besides teaching English to vendors, tour guides, and children, Matthew spends his days exploring the Yucatán region, studying the local Maya language, and participating in the daily, local life-style.   


CONTACT
matt@osea-cite.org
» Read More About Matt

Matthew “Mateo” Breines, aka Bobochi aka Polok Tzo, is a local staple in Piste. Currently teaching English as a Second Language (ESL) and Mathematics in a high school in New York City, Mateo participated in OSEA as an Anthropology student in the summer of 2009 and has visited Piste frequently ever since. An avid learner and participant of Piste culture and history, Mateo’s Spanish sounds unmistakably “Yucateco”—he enjoys Maya-nizing it whenever possible. When visiting Piste, he spends his days exploring the Yucatán region, studying the local Maya language, and participating in the daily, local life-style. During his year as a student in OSEA, Mateo studied the consumerist practices of tourists in Chichen Itza. Studying in Chichen daily allowed Mateo to interact with and befriend local venders and residents of Piste, making a name (and various nicknames) for him self in town. Mateo returned to OSEA in 2011 as the Director of SELT, successfully running 3 classes with over 50 students. Mateo will be receiving his Masters in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages - Education at CUNY Hunter in May of 2015

 

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OSEA SELT Teach English & Intensive Spanish, 2012

Gabrielle Acquaro Delatorre
BA 2012 Indiana University
Pre-Med, Anthropology Major and Concentration in Second Language Pedagogy

Currently in Medical School at the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana Med School, since Fall 2012 --

OSEA 2010 Alum

OSEA Spanish Language Instructor

CONTACT
gacquaro@indiana.edu

» Read More About Gabrielle Below

Gabrielle joins OSEA staff as a Spanish instructor in the 2012 summer.  She is OSEA 2010 Alumni finishing her BA in Anthropology at Indiana University in May  2012. As a pre-Med anthropology major, Gaby chose to do an OSEA research project in which she worked with pregnant Maya women in the community to explore the kinds of medical care that they chose — traditional midwifes, massagers, healers, and allopathic medicine.  This research has helped Gaby develop a more profound understanding of the cultural and social bases and contexts of health care which she plans on incorporating into her future career as an MD.

Gaby grew up in a Hispanic household and is a native bilingual speaker with perfect fluency in both Spanish and English. With family in Guadalajara her experience in Yucatán was an opportunity to experience first-hand the cultural and social diversity of México.  In addition to her anthropology and pre-Med studies, she minored in Spanish.  Currently, she is taking courses on teaching foreign and second languages to adults.  Gaby is excited to implement various teaching and learning techniques in the intensive Spanish program. Specifically, she interested in teaching the students communicative proficiencies in Spanish that will allow them to maximize their social and personal relationships in Pisté, their learning in the OSEA program, and their research projects goals.

 

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OSEA SELT Teach English & Intensive Spanish, 2013


Meg Cychosz
PhD student in Linguistics, Indiana University

M.A. Hispanic Linguistics, Indiana University, 2014 (expected) B.A. Spanish, French, English, Magna Cum Laude and High University Honors, 2012, Butler University


CONTACT
meg@osea-cite.org

Meg Cychosz is a graduate student in Hispanic Linguistics at Indiana University. After completing a triple degree program in languages at Butler University that included fieldwork on the Catalan language in Spain and France, Meg decided to pursue Hispanic linguistics at the graduate level. She is particularly interested in Hispanic sociolinguistics, anthropological linguistics, as well as Spanish in contact with indigenous languages such as Quechua and Maya. She is currently working on a research project on the innovative use of copulas in the language contact environment of Lima, Peru. Meg currently works as an Associate Instructor in the Spanish and Portuguese department of Indiana University.

 

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SELT Program Coordinator, 2010


Megan Solon
Ph.D. in Hispanic Linguistics, Indiana University, expected 2014
M.A. in Spanish, 2007, Miami University
B.A. in Spanish, Summa Cum Laude and with University Honors with Distinction, 2007, Miami University

2010 SELT Teaching English Coordinator and Spanish Instructor

CONTACT
megan@osea-cite.org

» Read More About Megan

Megan Solon is a doctoral student in Hispanic Linguistics at Indiana University. After two years of graduate training in linguistic anthropology, Megan decided to pursue Hispanic linguistics with an interest in Spanish second language acquisition as well as in contact between Spanish and the indigenous languages of Latin America. She is currently working on a project on the acquisition of the present progressive aspect in Spanish as a second language by native English speakers. She also has an interest in studying pragmatic variation in Spanish brought about by its contact with languages like Maya. Megan earned her MA in Spanish from Miami University in 2007 and worked as Associate Faculty in Spanish at Indiana University-Purdue University, Fort Wayne in 2007-2008.

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OSEA Research Associates, Affiliate Teaching Faculty, and Visiting Lecturers

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Dr. Patricia Fortuny Loret de Mola
PhD 1995, University College London

Facultad de Antropologia
CIESAS Peninsular
Merida, Yucatan, Mexico


CONTACT
mpfortuny@gmail.com

» Read More About Patricia

Patricia Fortuny Loret de Mola is social anthropologist with specialization in religion and immigration. In addition to fieldwork in Yucatán and Jalisco, México, she has directed and participated in national and international research projects with immigrant and religious communities in San Francisco, Atlanta, Houston, and Immokalee, Florida. She pioneered the ethnographic study of Protestantism in the Yucatan and is the leading expert on the church Luz de Mundo, which was founded in Mexico and then "exported" or "globalized" around the world, including the USA. Fortuny Loret de Mola is a Professor and Researcher (Title C) at CIESAS, where she has worked since 1988. She is the author of two books and more than 60 articles and chapters on religion, conversion narrative, secularization, and transnational migration. She is a National Researcher of the Sistema Nacional de Investigadores Nivel II and the recipient of Fulbright and Rockefeller Foundation Grants.

 

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Jennifer Mathews

Ph.D. Anthropology at UC Riverside

OSEA Research Affiliate
Associate Professor, Trinitiy University

CONTACT

jmathews@trinity.edu

» Read More About Jennifer
» Webpage


Jennifer Mathews is an Associate Professor of Anthropology in the Sociology and Anthropology Department at Trinity University. She received her Master's and Ph.D. in Anthropology, with a specialization in Maya Archaeology, from the University of California at Riverside. Her undergraduate degree was in Anthropology from San Diego State University. She co-directs the Yalahau Regional Human Ecology Project in Quintana Roo, Mexico and has been conducting fieldwork and archival research in the Mexico since 1993. Her research has focused on the ancient Maya, studying roads, architecture, and the layout of sites. More recently she has been focusing on the historic period of the Yucatán Peninsula (1550-1950), looking at the extraction of commodities like chicle (the base for chewing gum) and logwood (used for dye), and the production of sugar and rum. She has written several journal articles and book chapters, and edited two books on Maya archaeology: "Quintana Roo Archaeology" (with Justine Shaw, http://www.uapress.arizona.edu/BOOKS/bid1635.htm) and "Lifeways in the Northern Maya Lowlands: New Approaches to Archaeology in the Yucatán Peninsula" (with Bethany Morrison, http://www.uapress.arizona.edu/BOOKS/bid1672.htm). She has recently published the book, "Chicle: Chewing Gum of the Americas - From the Ancient Maya to William Wrigley" (http://www.uapress.arizona.edu/BOOKS/bid2059.htm)

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Sootz.
Originally from Yokdzonot, she moved to Pisté at a young age. Sootz winters in Bloomington where she plays in the snow. She is strong believer in the Re-Use/Recycling movement, her favorite toys are used plastic bottles, plastic and paper.

 

 

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In addition to the faculty listed here, OSEA programs involve faculty and guest lecturers who have diverse research and teaching interests. Their contribution to OSEA is a core component of the pedagogical and research mission.

 

 

 

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