The Jane’s Travel Grant allowed me the opportunity to perform independent research in Quintana Roo, Mexico from May 31st through July 10th. During my time abroad I was able to visit eleven different archaeological sites in the area. These were dispersed in a multitude of environments, varying from the cliff-side coastal site of Tulum, to Kohunlich, deep in the heart of the Mexican jungle. Tulum is a popular tourist destination, receiving over one million visitors per year. In many of the other sites I visited, the workers at the entrance booth outnumbered the number of sightseers. The sheer number of people at Tulum never really allows one the serene experience of nature that is available at many of the other sites.
The juxtaposition of nature and manmade antiquity was consistently impressive. Nature and time seem to have joined up to display their prominence over landscape. My research aims to discover the ways in which processes of the state constrain and utilize these changing landscapes – and how this impacts life at the local level. Staring at these massive monuments overrun with huge trees, constantly swatting mosquitoes and listening to the omnipresent calls of the wild, one almost forgets that laborers painstakingly excavate, consolidate, restore and maintain these sites – and at one point Tulum was much the same.
November 19th, 2012
Wednesday, December 5. 3:30 pm
The Sword, the Pen, and the Uterus: The Role of Jewish Latin American Women in Creating Inclusive Public Spheres
From 1976 until 1983, Argentina lived under a repressive military dictatorship. Join HBI Scholar-in-Residence Dalia Wassner to learn about the creative
activism of Jewish women in Argentina as they fought to bring transparency and accountability to the period of terror. This talk will be held in Fernando Rosenberg’s class, “Culture and Social Change in Latin America.”
Hadassah-Brandeis Institute,
Epstein Building, Brandeis University
515 South Street, Waltham MA 02454
Free and open to the public
Parking available in Epstein lot
November 16th, 2012
Please join us for an exciting hour as two of our recent Jane’s Travel Grant recipients present their research:
Jane’s Travel Grant Presentations:
Leah Smith and Terrance Hall
Thursday, 11/15
12pm-1pm
Brown 115
Leah Smith, Salvador, Brazil - ”Potent Minds & Sterile Bodies: A Discussion of Desire, Decisions and Bodily Experience Among Surgically Sterilized, Low-Income Women in Salvador, Brazil”
Terrance Hall, Tulum, Mexico - ”Learning to Speak Antropología”
Plus we’ll have free pizza!
November 6th, 2012
November 5th, 2012
WITNESS FOR PEACE NEW ENGLAND presents LIGNA PULIDO
Indigenous leader from Colombia
Mrs. Pulido will address U.S. policies toward Colombia (particularly the Colombian Consolidation Plan), and the effects these policies have on indigenous communities and, most especially, on women. The discussion will illuminate the connections between militarization, trade agreements, indigenous rights, women’s rights, land rights, and environmental protection. The Heller School for Social Policy- Room G4
October 3rd, 2012
On Thursday, October 11 at 5 p.m. in Shiffman 219 Michael Nava will read from his forthcoming novel, The City of Palaces.
Attorney and writer Michael Nava is the author of a series of seven novels involving lawyer Henry Rios and as the co-author of Created Equal: Why Gay Rights Matter to America. For 15 years, from 1986 to 2001, the Henry Rios novels used the mystery genre to explore timely social and political issues involving ethnicity and sexuality.
The City of Palaces is set before and during the Mexican Revolution, and is Nava’s first novel in more than a decade.
Brandeis Social Science Blog
October 3rd, 2012
Hello LALS Blog community! I’m very excited and honored to have been asked to post on the LALS blog. My name is Chiara Bercu, I was an LALS, Anthropology, and IGS major with a minor in Hispanic Studies. During my time at Brandeis I worked in Guatemala at Grameen Bank during summer of 2008. I went to Bolivia on a summer study abroad program (SIT-Lens on Latin America 2009). And received a Jane’s Travel Grant to study the effects of globalization on Posadas in Guanajuato, Mexico during the winter vacation of 2010/11. After graduation I worked for the Social Science Research Council in Brooklyn, NY for a year before receiving a fellowship through the American Jewish World Service organization to spend a year working for a grassroots non-profit in India. I will spend the upcoming year working for an organization called Mumbai Mobile Creches, which strives to provide education, health care, and safety to the children of migrant workers on Mumbai’s constructions sites.
Although what I did after college was not directly related to my LALS major, or the experiences listed above, being an LALS major certainly gave me a perspective on life that has led me to where I am today. Learning theories of international development with Professor Thorne, learning to be sensitive to cultural change (and environmental resources!) as a result of globalization with Professor Ferry, and seeing artistic representations in film and literature of major social movements in Latin America with Professor Rosenberg have all had profound and lasting effects in the ways I approach what I will do in the future. I have learned to consider all aspects of a problem, from theoretical to practical to cultural to environmental because the issues we face as global citizens are multi-faceted and must be approached as such. In preparing for my work in India, I have already begun reading novels and political/historical accounts, watching movies, and researching theories of sustainable education practices. I have also begun to see a great deal of similarities between societies and cultures that I have studied in Latin America and what I have been learning about India (also similarities to the United States, being a “developed nation” as we like to call ourselves does not exclude us from sharing many of the same social, cultural, and economic problems!). Latin America will always have a tender spot in my heart, and I hope to one day spend time working or living there again. But for now, I hope to continue learning from my experiences and to carry them forward as I search for what to do and where I will end up!
- Chiara
September 20th, 2012
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September 5th, 2012
