Description

The KU Anthropology in the Amazon program will provide undergraduate and graduate student participants with an introduction to methods, logistics, and ethics for collecting and analyzing both qualitative and quantitative ethnographic data. Coursework provides in-depth orientation to theory and practice in anthropological investigation that emphasizes methods in Participatory Research and Amazonian Ethnography. This will include a number of diverse themes, including: Cultural-diversity, Ritual Life, Contemporary Shamanism, Health, Community Organization, Politics, and Social Change and Development.

Amid verdant rainforests, towering tropical mountains, and cascading waterfalls, students will have an opportunity to discover some of the globe's most magnificent plant and animal habitats. The Field School will explore the profoundly diverse cultural traditions and life-ways of the Upper Amazon, including: music, oral traditions, culinary practices, customary patterns of work, and ritual life. To this end, undergraduate and graduate participants will have the opportunity to actively engage in ongoing investigations in local urban and rural communities to develop effective field research techniques, and to acquire pertinent language skills. Approaches covered will consist of: participant observation, methods for behavioral observation, social network and genealogical analyses, oral history techniques, event-centered perspectives, material culture analysis, and the systematic collection and interpretation of visual and auditory materials. Community-based and classroom training will focus on primary methods to collect ethnographic data, including social organization information, not to mention other key social-cultural "domains": demographic, economic, symbolic, political, ritual, and health and "well-being" data.

Methodological training in ethnographic field techniques will occur through the contextualization of the Upper Amazon as a series of places: participants will learn about the cultural and political-economic histories of the Upper Amazon, one of the globe's most culturally and biologically varied regions. Complementing immersion in community (indigenous, mestizo, and urban) oriented development projects, a series of field excursions or expeditions in the region (both in the selva alta--high jungle--and the selva baja--low jungle) will supplement the training objective of reinforcing the importance of an ethnological understanding in ethnographic fieldwork. Undergraduate and graduate students will learn about the ethnohistory of the region's Bajomayo ("low mayo") Valley, which was the traditional precolumbian territory of two thriving cultures: the Chazuta and the Chachapoyas. During the Incan Pachacutec's reign, the Chanchas peoples (who originally occupied the upper Ayacucho region) fled from their Inca rivals, escaping to the Amazon. They founded the small city Lamas. In addition to Andean migrants, the region is home to numerous indigenous groups, such as the Lamas, the Chayahuita, and the Cocama-Cocamilla peoples.

The Study Abroad Field program provides excursions to museums, archaeological sites, tropical lagoons, waterfalls, and hot springs. This Study Abroad Ethnographic field training program will take place primarily in the Peruvian Upper Amazon, in affiliation with the Universidad Nacional de San Martin, Tarapoto (Peru) and will be directed by B. Dean (Associate Prof., Dept. of Anthropology, University of Kansas, Visiting Professor, Universidad Nacional de San Martin and the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, Peru).

The field school will be based in Tarapoto, San Martín, a region in northern Peru. Most of the region is located in the upper part of the Peruvian Amazon rainforest. San Martín's capital is Moyobamba (the Peruvian Amazon's oldest urban center), and the largest city in the region is Tarapoto. Known as The Palm Tree City or the "City of Palms", Tarapoto is a thriving commercial hub in the Upper Amazon, located an hour by plane from Lima. Although Moyobamba is the capital of the region, Tarapoto is the Province's largest city (100,000 plus), and is linked to the Upper Amazon and the historic city of Yurimaguas in the lower jungle by a relatively well-maintained transandean road. Located 350 meters above sea level, Tarapoto was founded in 1782. Tarapoto is home to the Universidad Nacional de San Martin, an important center of higher education serving the professional and technical needs of the bio-diverse region. With its active night-life, Tarapoto offers a wide variety of hotels and restaurants in and around the city. The region's main activities are tourism, commerce, agriculture and a thriving illicit "shadow economy" including the extraction of lumber and the trade in land concessions.

The session will culminate in the jungle metropolis of Iquitos, where students will spend a week comparing and investigating field methods learned earlier in the trip. Through experiences in both rural and urban Amazonia, participants will have the opportunity to explore notions of culture, society, development, politics, globalization and more as they impact these different types of South American communities. Intimate, seminar-style instruction throughout the Field School will ensure that students contextualize their experience and maintain a research agenda.