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802.258.3212
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802.258.3388
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Kipling Road, P.O. Box 676,
Brattleboro, Vermont USA 05302-0676
Bolivia: Culture and Development
Program Highlights
Bolivia is a spectacular multicultural country located in the central Andes Mountains. Bolivia has a high proportion of Amerindian inhabitants, including Quechua, Aymara, Guarani, and Mestizo, as well as a mixture of people of Caucasian descent (14%), African descent (0.2%), and other ethnic groups (7%), which provides an incredible opportunity for intercultural learning. With the help of a select group of academics, intellectuals, and host families, students explore firsthand the mysteries of this country's culture, its cosmovision, and the layered growth of its multi-ethnic social system.
Students on this program have the unique opportunity to witness and engage in some of this country's most pressing issues. The program begins by exploring the history of indigenous cultures: their disempowerment through colonization and then modernization and their recent empowerment through grassroots political action. In the classroom and on excursions, students meet and talk to Bolivian leaders making history. With the help of economists and NGO leaders students analyze theories of dependent economies and development in a country exploited for centuries by the exportation of natural resources and currently scrutinized for its tradition of growing coca. Students also gain a unique perspective of international and national environmental and economic policy.
Documentary Film Option
Students have the unique opportunity to produce an ethnographic video documentary for their Independent Study Project. During the Field Study Seminar, one class focuses on visual anthropology and how to think about this field in new and creative ways. Students learn about the use of camera and video as a medium to studying and recording cultures and gain skills that help them portray conditions that go beyond the realm of written word.
Previous student groups have created video documentaries covering topics including the lives, hopes and difficulties of a girls' orphanage in the city of Cochabamba; working children in one of the poorest mining villages near Oruro; the events leading up to the expulsion of the Bolivian president. These videos have been useful inside Bolivia as well as back at the students' home environments. Students are able to share their experiences with more people and promote discussion and, if they so choose, continue engaging in social justice work by taking action on the matters treated in the videos.
Any students interested in the documentary film option must come prepared with the following equipment:
- A digital video camera- preferably a mini DV. Students should ensure in advance that their camera is compatible with their laptop. All cameras should have access for an external microphone and headphones.
- A laptop- we recommend using a Mac so that students can access Final Cut Pro to edit. Because Final Cut Pro is not compatible with PCs, any students bringing a PC should also bring a copy of the Adobe Premier editing program.
- An external Hard Drive- minimum of 80GB
- All necessary wires and adaptors to connect this equipment (Fire wire or USB cables)