
Dr. Castañeda began taking students to Yucatán during
the summers to learn about Maya peoples, culture, history and ethnography
in 1994. 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
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.
The Field School was sponsored in part by a major grant from the Fideicomiso
MéxicoUSA, a binational funding agency comprising the Rockefeller
Foundation, the Mexican Fondo Nacional de la Cultura y las Artes, and
the Fundación Bancomer.
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 CITE The Community Institute of Transcultural
Exchange.
 
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