Courses
Course Overview
OSEA offers a set of Core Courses in Anthropology, Ethnography,
Fieldwork, and Independent Field Research. The precise topics and number
of hours varies according to the specific OSEA Training Program. Participants
are expected to seriously engage in the academic components of the Program
by reading, writing, and preparing discussion.
Course Title |
Level |
Content |
Hours |
Intensive, Intermediate
& Advanced Spanish |
2-3rd yr
to Adv |
Spanish Language |
variable |
Beginning Spoken Maya |
1st
year |
Yucatec Maya
language |
variable |
Seminars in Anthropology |
3-4th
yr & Grad |
Maya culture,
history |
variable |
Seminars in Ethnography |
3-4th
yr & Grad |
Fieldwork Methods,
ethics, analysis |
variable |
Fieldwork Research |
3-4th yr
& Grad |
Independent project |
variable |
Workshops in Ethnographic
Fieldwork |
3-4th
yr & Grad |
Supervised Forum
Discussion of Student Research Projects |
variable |
OSEA reserves the right to substitute faculty
with the appropriate experiences and credentials when necessary to support
the program’s objectives and mission.
Course Descriptions
Seminars in Anthropology
Seminars have different topical and thematic focus. These courses
provide students with foundation knowledge about the histories, cultures,
civilizations, and peoples of Yucatán. Topics include: Precolumbian
Maya Civilization, Spanish Colonization and Colonialism; Yucatec Maya
Identities and Ethnicities; Economy of Yucatán; Maya Peoples
and Culture; Tourism Development; New Age Maya Religions; Cultural
Ecology; Maya Healing and Ritual; and Contemporary Maya Identity Politics.
This seminar also treats contemporary issues in anthropology, theory
of culture, interdisciplinary cultural studies, and related fields.
Seminars include field trips/tours of Chichén Itzá and
other cultural sites of anthropological significance. The January
programs include participation in the religious festival of the Three
Kings in Tizimin, and the traditional Maya festival of the Kotz Kal
Dzó in Dzitás. Winter and Spring Semester Programs include
participation in the Equinox Ritual of Chichén.
Readings may include: the Special Issue of the Journal
of Latin American Anthropology on Maya Identity; selections
from Robert Redfield’s Chan Kom;
Betty Faust’s Mexican Rural Development
and the Feathered Serpent; Hervik’s Mayan
Within and Beyond Boundaries; and the journal articles: Castillo
Cocom “Maya PRInces in YucaPAN”; Castañeda “Approaching
Ruins, New and Old Social Movements; Arnold Strickon “Hacienda
and Plantation in Yucatán”; Morris Steggerda “Maya
Medical Remedies”; Redfield and Redfield “Disease and
its Treatment in Dzitás”; chapter on Yucatán in
“Birth in Four Cultures”; Evaluation of student success
in learning is based on active participation in seminar and brief
essays based on questions about the readings.
Seminars in Ethnography
Seminars have different topical and thematic focus. These courses
provide students with the foundations of research methods and fieldwork
in ethnography. Topics include: the nature and agenda of ethnography;
ethics, politics, epistemology of ethnographic representation; research
design and the formulation of research problems; methods of ethnographic
fieldwork; concepts, principles and procedures of doing fieldwork;
collecting information and analyzing data. Students are trained in
the use of specific methods (interviewing, participation, observation,
setting up research encounters, strategic research design, creation
of research problems); objectivism and subjectivism; description and
analysis; field notes and documentation; participant observation:
performativity; bodies & gestures; staging and scenography; modes
of interviewing; therapeutic function of fieldwork; invisible theatre:
research design; ethnographic installation, elicitation and trigger;
data collection, preservation, analysis.
Readings include: selections from Russell Bernard, Handbook
of Methods in Cultural Anthropology and Research Methods in Anthropology;
Norman Denzin, Interpretive Interactionism;
Garfinkel, Studies in Ethnomethodology;
George Marcus, Ethnography Through Thick and
Thin; Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Decolonizing
Methodologies.
Evaluation of student success in learning is based on active participation
in seminar and the preparation of an independent student research
project that the student will carry out. Emphasis is given on the
formulation of research problem of study and the design of ethnographic
fieldwork by which those issues are investigated.
Workshop on Ethnographic Fieldwork
This course is a workshop conducted concurrently with the independent
fieldwork period. Students return from their field sites to Pisté
to participate. Activities include presentation of research problems,
results, processes, dynamics, and activities. Function of workshop
is to ensure adequate supervision of projects as well as provide students
a regular forum to share with other students their ongoing research.
Thus, students also learn basics of formal and informal presentation
of materials.
Independent Field Research
These projects are determined on site in relation to the students
interests and goals. Although students are strongly guided and supervised
in their formulation of research design and conduct, students have
the fullest range possible for selecting their research issues and
themes. All projects however require the Staff approval in order to
be actualized and OSEA reserves the final right of authorization or
denial of projects conducted by its students.
The Seminar in Ethnography provides the basis for the independent
student projects that comprise the work for the course Fieldwork Research.
These projects are designed by the students with close supervision
by the OSEA staff and are conducted in Pisté. In addition to
the independent research, students participate in an workshop in which
students present their activities, difficulties, successes, and thoughts
to each other. Evaluation of student success in learning is based
not only the elicitation information and collection of data, but the
written presentation of these in typed transcripts, fieldnotes, and
final written reports.
Intensive & Immersive Language Courses
Spanish and Yucatec Maya
The intensive training in Spanish and Yucatec Maya is at intermediate
and beginning level respectively. Teaching methods include hands-on,
interactive assignments modeled on “Reality-TV” team-competition
games. Evaluation of learning is primarily based on student ability
to successfully interact with and engage persons in their native languages
of Spanish and Maya. Students are frequently assigned interactive
tasks as part of the practicum of language immersion. The language
learning is not the primary goal and activity of OSEA Programs. The
intensive training has the objective of preparing students for total
language immersion in the bi-lingual life-world of Yucatán
in order to conduct ethnographic research.
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