Dr. Castañeda began taking students to Yucatán during
the summers to learn about Maya peoples, culture, history and ethnography
in 1994. [see student success link] After three field seasons, 1994-1996,
the ethnographic training program was re-structured as the Field School
in Experimental Ethnography. This project combined the goals of research
and teaching in an innovative program. Students took courses in ethnographic
methods and cultural anthropology while learning how to do fieldwork.
Student researchers focused their participation in one of three projects:
The Ah Dzib Pizté Project
in Maya Art and Anthropology
The Chilam Balam Project in Memory and History
SELT is The School of Experimental Language Learning, Community Action Research Project
MIRA: Multimedia Interdisciplinary Research in Anthropology, Comparative Tourism Destinations
The Field School in Experimental Ethnography completed its research
projects in 2000 after three successful field seasons. In three summer
seasons of research, the program trained more than 30 undergraduates
and five graduate students and worked in three areas of investigation
indicated above.
The Field School was sponsored in part by a major grant from the Fideicomiso
México-USA, a binational funding agency comprising the Rockefeller
Foundation, the Mexican Fondo Nacional de la Cultura y las Artes, and
the Fundación Bancomer. COMEXUS, the Comision México-USA,
also provided administrative support.
Based on a re-newed collaboration with Dr. Juan Castillo Cocom beginning
in 2000, the Field School was transformed into and re-inaugurated as
The Open School of Ethnography and Anthropology. In 2003 the Field School
in Experimental Ethnography was re-designed and re-inaugurated as OSEA
or The Open School of Ethnography and Anthropology under the auspices
of the CITE — The Community Institute of Transcultural Exchange.
Dr. Castillo Cocom currently divides his time between the Universidad
Nacional Pedagógica, where he holds a position, and OSEA, where
he continues to offer students to work whim and learn from his profound
understanding of all things Maya of Yucatán.
MIRA: Multimedia Interdisciplinary Research in Anthropology, Comparative Tourism Destinations OSEA develops MIRA a field school project for students investigating comparative tourism destinations in Yucatan Peninsula.
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