A 2018 SIT Ecuador alum will return to the Intag Valley, in one of just 25 “megabiodiverse” regions in the world, to monitor water quality in villages threatened by mining.
Patrick Robinson was named a 2023 Alice Rowan Swanson Fellow, SIT announced this month. Robinson studied abroad on SIT Ecuador: Development, Politics, and Languages in spring 2018. Then a student at the University of Virginia, he graduated in 2019 with a double major in global development studies and foreign affairs. Currently, he is a PhD candidate in sociocultural anthropology at University of Arizona.
“I am honored and delighted to have been named an ARS Fellow, and I look forward to supporting the ARS family’s mission of advancing human rights around the world,” Robinson said.
Alice Rowan Swanson Fellowships are awarded twice annually to SIT alumni seeking to pursue locally led human rights projects in the countries where they studied abroad. The fellowship was established in 2009 by the family of an SIT Nicaragua alumna as a tribute to her desire to bridge cultures and help others, and the role that SIT played in her life. A 2007 graduate of Amherst College, Alice Rowan Swanson was killed while riding her bicycle to work in 2008.
Ecuador’s Intag Valley is the site of a long-simmering dispute over mining and regional development. Government-granted mining concessions to foreign corporations now cover more than 90 percent of the valley. Robinson said local activists fear mining activity will damage the rare cloud forest ecology of their communities and annihilate traditional lifestyles that have characterized the valley for more than a century.
“There are few, if any, human rights more fundamental than the right to clean water, the right to a healthy natural environment, and the right to practice the traditional ways of life characteristic of one’s people and community,” Robinson wrote in his fellowship application. All these rights are threatened by the prospect of mining in Intag, he notes. “Large-scale open-pit copper and gold mining projects like those slated to begin in Intag are notorious for the extensive social and environmental damage they so often cause.”
In a recommendation for Robinson, Angel Flores and Graham Richards, members of a local parish council, said the mining conflict is causing “clear social and environmental consequences that are expected to worsen exponentially over the coming months, years, and decades.”
Robinson aims to collect water quality data to document environmental degradation resulting from exploratory mining operations in one community where local activists have already measured above-normal levels of arsenic, zinc, copper, and other metals. He will also collect samples to establish a baseline in several other communities where mining has not yet started.
“This documentation is essential,” Robinson wrote in his proposal. “Environmental damage must be recorded if communities are to successfully petition for a change.”
In addition to environmental impacts, Robinson notes that water quality degradation affects the local economy, including the region’s primary economic drivers: small-scale agriculture and livestock. “No community should be forced to renounce their traditional way of life because of decisions others make, over which they have no agency,” he states.
“By empowering local people to protect their lands, human rights, and traditional ways of life, I aim to bolster an alternative regional development strategy, espoused by many Inteños, that is based on the indigenous Andean cosmovision of Sumak Kawsay (good living) and that emphasizes environmental preservation and regeneration, participatory democracy, and respect for traditional lifeways.”
Alice Rowan Swanson Fellows are required to carry out projects that are locally led and in conjunction with local organizations. Robinson plans to work with two conservation organizations, Área de Conservación y Uso Sostenible Municipal Intag Toisán (ACUSMIT) and Defensa y Conservación Ecológica de Intag (DECOIN), as well as members of one local parish council.
In 2018, Robinson conducted his SIT Independent Study Project in the village of Junín, where he lived with a homestay family and interviewed dozens of local stakeholders. He returned to the Intag region in 2019 with two UVA students where, over the next three months, they worked with local activists to choose test sites and collect samples for heavy metals analyses. They also coordinated and paid for wifi installation at a local ecotourism cooperative; worked with a small, U.S.-based alternative tourism agency on a marketing campaign; and collaborated with a local women’s plantain flour cooperative to help brand and support their products.
Citing his strong existing ties in the region, SIT Ecuador Academic Director Fabian Espinosa said Robinson “would be received as another member of the Intag community.”
By Gabriel Oppler
Gabriel Oppler participated in SIT Ecuador: Comparative Ecology and Conservation in 2016. Click here to find out more about this program.
In 2016, I was a junior at Haverford College majoring in biology with minors in environmental studies and Spanish. At the time, I knew these three topics could intersect in myriad ways, but only in my second semester did I see just how powerful a combination that could be.
That spring, I traveled to Ecuador on SIT’s Comparative Ecology and Conservation program. Living for several months with a wonderful host family in Quito, my Spanish skills finally leapt from academic reading and writing into full conversational proficiency. Excursions to this country’s many unique ecosystems impressed on me the importance of conserving biodiversity—flora and fauna species both known and as-of-yet undiscovered. What’s more, my Independent Study Project (ISP) in the Amazon region underscored the tensions underlying resource extraction (in this case, crude oil), traditional livelihoods, and environmental protection.
At the end of the semester, I left Ecuador with a more complete understanding of what “conservation” strives to achieve: balance between the needs of people and the needs of nature. What’s more, I had a strong sense that I would return to Ecuador. It was only a matter of time.
In the few years after graduation, I gained further experience at the intersection of society and ecology, working as a research assistant in botany and soil geochemistry, and trying my hand at environmental education. In 2019, I joined the staff at the Bozeman, Montana-based NGO Center for Large Landscape Conservation, whose mission is to advance the science, policy, and practice of connectivity conservation—an approach that prioritizes the lands between protected areas that support all ecological flows and processes.
I left Ecuador with a more complete understanding of what ‘conservation’ strives to achieve: balance between the needs of people and the needs of nature.
After three years away from school, I started my master’s degree at the University of Montana. Through UM’s W.A. Franke College of Forestry and Conservation, I enrolled in a unique degree offering called International Conservation and Development. The ICD program encourages graduate students to perform original research outside of the U.S. With a familiarity and appreciation for tropical conservation—stemming in large part from my experience with SIT—I began charting a return to Ecuador.
I designed a research project that focused on the newly established Sangay-Podocarpus Connectivity Corridor, a unique conservation initiative spearheaded by NGOs, universities, and the Ministry of Environment in Ecuador’s southern provinces. The corridor’s multi-scale governance model, premised on institutional collaboration, offers a potential exemplar for other parts of the world eager to implement connectivity conservation among and between existing protected areas. I was especially interested in the initiative’s capacity to use science to inform decision-making, and vice versa (how governance structures affect how science is produced).
Being immersed in this biodiversity hotspot—and getting to know the people working to protect its richness—added a level of appreciation that virtual engagement could never provide.
My approach was exploratory, conducting semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders in the region. Our interviews were virtual at first, and then, after some delay and logistical challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, I finally made it back to Ecuador. Once on the ground, I could pair interviews with field visits into the páramo and cloud forest that make up the corridor. Traveling around the landscape on foot, bus, and motorcycle was irreplaceable. As had been the case during my semester with SIT, being immersed in this biodiversity hotspot—and getting to know the people working to protect its richness—added a level of appreciation that virtual engagement could never provide.
After interviews and field visits were complete, I returned to Montana to complete my thesis. Looking at my data, I realized that implementing initiatives like the Sangay-Podocarpus Connectivity Corridor depends on many kinds of capacity: a common vision and set of values among collaborators; salient and credible science; open and transparent communication; and adequate funding and human resources. While this case study is context-specific, it highlights the need for ample, targeted capacity-building resources to support and sustain connectivity conservation that achieves both social and ecological goals.
Ultimately, I hope that these findings will not only contribute to the academic literature, but also provide tangible recommendations for the corridor and other initiatives like it. It was a privilege to conduct research in Ecuador and learn from some of the most knowledgeable and passionate conservationists on the planet. And as my interest in tropical conservation continues, I remain grateful for the foundation that I built as an SIT student back in 2016.
Fulbright awards, thesis bring opportunities to dig deeper
EXAMINING INDIGENOUS RESISTANCE TO EXTRACTIVE INDUSTRIES
Through SIT Ecuador, I partnered with Alexandra Almeida at Acción Ecológica to complete research on the negative impacts of the April 2020 oil spill in the Coca and Napo rivers on the local indigenous communities. This experience led me to focus my thesis research at Pomona College on Indigenous resistance to extractive industries in Ecuador, which have increasingly driven deforestation, human rights abuses, and public health crises, and have negatively impacted Indigenous peoples’ territories and cultures.
By Mariana Gonzalez Vega
SIT Ecuador: Comparative Ecology & Conservation Spring 2021
… if it is proven the Ecuadorian legal system is transparent and protects the rights of Indigenous communities, large corporations will be less bold to violate Indigenous rights.
Mariana Gonzalez Vega
Recent studies have found that Indigenous peoples are “exceptionally good” at protecting the biodiversity of their land. Ecuadorian Indigenous advocacy groups have mobilized against the nation’s neoliberal policies to protect their rights, the environment, and their way of life. A few ways they have accomplished this is through protests, demonstrations, disrupting oil operations, all despite facing police brutality and repression against demonstrators.
In 2019, the Waorani organized against the state and sued them for selling their land to oil companies without prior conversations with the local Indigenous communities (right to prior consultation). On April 26, they won the landmark case protecting 7 million acres of rainforest homelands that would have otherwise been opened to oil production plants, oil wells, and the construction of oil pipelines. This would unquestionably have polluted the air, water, and soil of the Amazon, in addition to increasing deforestation for the necessary oil production infrastructure.
The following year, at the beginning of the pandemic (April 2020), there was an oil spill on the Coca River caused by a ruptured pipeline, the contamination was reported to have reached as far as Peru. The Amazonian rivers are the lifeline of the forests, and the loss of the Coca river as a source of clean water or food has had an immeasurable impact on the local ecosystems and communities. The Kichwa people brought a lawsuit against the Ecuadorian government and oil companies over their liability in the country’s biggest oil spill in more than 10 years.
The appeal was rejected in lower courts, which goes against various Indigenous protections in the Constitution and against the constitutional rights of Nature itself. Here we have two Indigenous-resistance environmental cases over two Amazonian environmental and cultural threats. One receives a favorable outcome and the other does not.
Which factors impacted the differential results of these two cases? I will break down factors that potentially influenced the outcome of these two cases: international environmental and Indigenous law, domestic law and courts, the Ecuadorian constitution, social movements, and domestic politics.
After the substantial success of the Waorani people, there was a lot of hope that it would set a new precedent for Indigenous people to defend their rights through the Ecuadorian legal system. Measures such as the 2010 Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index, which ranked Ecuador 146/178 in 2009, demonstrate Ecuadorians do not hold much trust in the legal system. This is why Indigenous activists often use methods outside the courts to defend their rights as aforementioned: protests, demonstrations, disrupting oil operations.
These methods can be very dangerous for activists involved as they face abuse, legal persecution, police brutality, and sometimes incarceration or death.
By identifying which factors were most influential in the positive outcome in the Waorani case, Indigenous activists can leverage that information to their advantage. From a financial position, Ecuadorian Indigenous environmental activists can’t “buy” political clout like large oil and mining international corporations. From an optimistic perspective, if it is proven the Ecuadorian legal system is transparent and protects the rights of Indigenous communities, large corporations will be less bold to violate Indigenous rights.
The research may highlight faults in the Ecuadorian legal system that will pave the way for justice reform. I predict it will highlight the strengths in the organization of the Waorani or strengths in the tactics of the Waorani legal team, which other Indigenous groups may replicate in their legal cases.
A RARE FOCUS ON THE PARAMO PEATLANDS
By Lenka Doskocil
SIT Ecuador: Comparative Ecology & Conservation Spring 2020
I remember the first time I saw the páramo: vast and rolling, with a deep power, this region instantly captured my imagination. Tall, jagged mountains presiding over meadows and peatlands nestled in glacial valley bottoms and small depressions, the resemblance is so like the alpine of my Colorado home that my heart ached. But the páramo differs vastly from Colorado’s alpine ecosystems: different plant communities, different soil properties, different hydrology, and different histories.
Many mountain communities, especially large urban centers such as Quito and Cuenca in Ecuador, rely on the slow release of water from the páramo’s high-elevation grassland ecosystem.
Lenka Doskocil
Many mountain communities, especially large urban centers such as Quito and Cuenca in Ecuador, rely on the slow release of water from the páramo’s high-elevation grassland ecosystem—famous for high water retention capacity and elevated levels of endemism—to maintain sufficient streamflow and a year-round water supply.
Rapid glacial melt and human population growth have triggered immense concern over the future of water resources in Andean communities. This threat has a distinct potency in Ecuador, where more than half the population depends on water originating from páramo regions. Peatlands make up roughly a quarter of this system. They play significant roles in the famed hydrologic properties of the páramo and act as invaluable carbon storage systems.
Colorado, too, contains networks of peatlands (called fens) that function as critical carbon and water storage systems, wildlife habitat, and protectors of biodiversity. For years, I have worked on restoration and research projects involving mountain wetlands, including fens, and the opportunity to explore similar ecosystems in the páramo was exciting to me.
I was in Ecuador for the SIT Comparative Ecology and Conservation program in spring 2020 and was forced to return home due to the onset of COVID-19. As such, I completed my independent study project (ISP), an integral part of SIT’s curriculum, remotely. I began looking for ways to return to the páramo and found the Fulbright U.S. student program.*
I received a research grant to study peatlands in Ecuador under the mentorship of Dr. Esteban Suárez, a professor at Universidad San Francisco de Quito and a páramo ecosystem expert. I will be assisting in his lab on three different projects: active peatland restoration techniques, peatland characterization and mapping, and quantifying carbon dioxide and methane fluxes. Research on páramo peatlands has been sparse when compared with research efforts in other neotropical ecosystems, despite their significance.
I will be working with Dr. Suárez and his team to test two planting techniques in a peatland near the Antisana volcano where the introduction of pasture grasses has proved stubborn. I will also be helping with field data collection on a nationwide peatland mapping and characterization effort. The national vegetation map for Ecuador does not differentiate peatlands from the surrounding paramo, which results in a lack of protection and understanding for these critical systems. The carbon and methane fluxes project compose a part of this national effort, and will compare greenhouse gas fluxes from impacted, resorted, and intact peatlands.
CONNECTING LAND USE AND CLIMATE CHANGE IN CHILE
By Sage Fox
SIT Ecuador: Comparative Ecology & Conservation 2018
Ever since studying abroad with SIT Ecuador in 2018, I wanted to return to South America as a researcher. After completing my bachelor’s degree, I applied for a Fulbright Open Study/Research grant* in Chile. In fall 2021, I was awarded the grant and I started my year in Chile at the end of February 2022.
My work has been highly varied and incredibly rewarding so far, with everything from field work in remote Patagonian fjords to complex meetings with stakeholders and scientists.
Sage Fox
I am now living in the city of Concepción, working on two large research projects while auditing graduate classes at the Universidad Católica de la Santísima Concepción (UCSC). The research projects are complementary and both are funded by the Chilean government. Taken together, they aim to characterize the value of freshwater provisioning to socioecological systems in northwestern Patagonia, as well as project the threats to water provisioning posed by climate change and land conversion.
The first project seeks to characterize current hydrological signatures of five major rivers, quantify the importance of these rivers’ inputs to biochemical processes and ecological functions in the fjords they drain into, and assess the risk of hydrological signature changes to ecosystems and aquaculture under drought scenarios.
The second project is focused more narrowly on the role of land-use practices in exacerbating or mitigating the impacts of climate change on southern Chile’s aquaculture industry. To that end, the project’s focus is threefold. First is to describe the relationship between river hydrological signature and production success for salmon and mussel farming. Second is to project hydrological signatures under various climate change and land use scenarios. Third is to assess the economic value of water provisioning as an ecosystem service to the aquaculture industry under various land use and climate change scenarios.
Within these broad projects, I am mostly working on river monitoring, economic analysis, water governance, and public outreach dimensions. My work has been highly varied and incredibly rewarding so far, with everything from field work in remote Patagonian fjords to complex meetings with stakeholders and scientists. I am incredibly grateful to both SIT for initially inspiring me to pursue research abroad, and to the Fulbright U.S. Student Program for supporting my experience here in Chile.
*The Fulbright Open Study/Research Award, part of the U.S Student Program, supports U.S. graduate students or recent graduates for one year in conducting thesis and dissertation research, or independent research with audited coursework. These competitive programs offer opportunities for young professionals to network, learn about new cultures, practice a second language, and develop professionally.
“The current struggle has deep historical roots, since the past was never forgotten and oppression has never ceased.”
By Fabián Espinosa
Fabián Espinosa is academic director of SIT Ecuador: Development, Politics, and Languages
On April 8, 1872, Dakilima Apu was executed in the central Andean province of Chimborazo, accused of leading a rebellion against the García Moreno regime. Condemned to forced labor, the Indigenous Kichwa rebelled against the Ecuadorian state then and numerous times since.
The wars of independence that led to the creation of different states in Latin America did not imply the recognition of Indigenous peoples as citizens of the new republics, but rather, the consolidation of an ethnic paradigm imposed by Spanish colonizers based on the exploitation and exclusion of both the Indigenous population and the descendants of enslaved Africans.
As Peruvian decolonialist Aníbal Quijano states: “The new independent state in Latin America did not emerge as a modern nation-state. It was not national regarding the great majority of the population, and it was not democratic. It was not sustained by, nor did it represent, a citizen majority. It was a faithful expression of coloniality of power.” (El movimiento indígena y las cuestiones pendientes en América Latina)
Dakilima Apu’s final words, Shuyay, mana kiwaychu ñuka churi (“Wait without despair, my children”) were indicative of historical consciousness, the key feature of the political mobilization of the Indigenous people in Ecuador then and now.
This month, a new uprising was declared after the government failed to respond to demands made by CONAIE (the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador) in August 2021, when the pandemic became a pretext for advancement of the government’s neoliberal agenda. The devastating effects of such policies on popular sectors and on Indigenous territories are well known: a sharp reduction in social investment; an expansion of extractive industries; a rolling back of labor rights; and the strong possibility of elimination of subsidies and privatization of strategic public entities.
Institutionalized corruption, growing social inequity, and a humanitarian crisis associated with a prison system that has taken the lives of hundreds of inmates have also contributed significantly to social discontent.
The new independent state in Latin America … was not sustained by, nor did it represent, a citizen majority. It was a faithful expression of coloniality of power.
Peruvian decolonialist Aníbal Quijano
The protest has been met with intense repression. Vast areas of the country have been militarized. The suspension of civil liberties and the temporary detention of Leonidas Iza, the president of CONAIE, have worsened the situation. As of this writing, five people have been killed, eight have dissappeared, 145 have been injured, 127 have been detained, and 11 repressive operations have been carried out in the provinces.
Special interest groups have taken advantage of the social unrest to generate chaos, confusion, and violence. Some political actors are calling for the impeachment of President Guillermo Lasso, but it remains to be seen if there are enough votes in the National Assembly.
This current struggle has deep historical roots, since the past was never forgotten and oppression has never ceased. The so-called Indigenous question reveals how Ecuador, and states throughout Latin America, accept a single citizenship but not multiple nationalities. While citizen protection is supposed to be granted to all Ecuadorians, not even civil rights protect the Indigenous.
The struggle has taken different shapes over the decades, depending on the nature of the oppression. During the 1940s, the struggle was agrarian. Indigenous cooperatives and unions emerged, supported by the Communist and Socialist parties. The Cuban Revolution in 1959 influenced the Indigenous political platform by reinforcing the priority of access to land. Years later, the progressive sector of the Roman Catholic church, often labeled Liberation Theology, promoted community-based organizations in the context of self-determination.
Eventually, new concepts and strategies in the political struggle led to the creation of ECUARUNARI (Ecuador Runakunapak Rikcharimuy / The Awakening of the Ecuadorian Kichwa). The name of the organization defined—through language, a clear indicator of cultural identity—a historical belonging to a specific people, the Kichwa, while also expressing the will to redefine their relationship with the Ecuadorian state.
During this process, a set of ideas emerged in the Indigenous consciousness: the need to develop well-defined, contemporary, and realistic concepts to comprehend and explain the situation of Indigenous peoples while reaffirming their hopes and claims. The concepts of nationality and a plurinational state were subject to debate, consensus, and approval.
This meant reclaiming the name, language, culture, geographical framework, economic, and social practices of each Indigenous group (Kichwa Runa, Shuar, Achuar, Shiwiar, Ba’i, A’i, Tsachila, Chachi, Awa, Waorani, Sapara). A sense of renewal and empowerment permeated Indigenous organizations at the community and national levels. But most importantly, this process revealed the weakness of Ecuadorian democracy.
In 1986, CONAIE was formed. The political mobilization of the Indigenous people reassigned new meaning to traditional power and knowledge. As Ecuador theorist Prof. Ileana Almeida points out, Indigenous people were expressing themselves as historical communities.
The main demand of the Indigenous movement was the declaration of Ecuador as a plurinational state. In social terms, this means expressing the transformation not as multiculturalism—the naïve or innocent celebration of difference and diversity. In sharp contrast, a plurinational state is defined by interculturality, which is linked to the geopolitics of space, the historical and current struggle of Indigenous peoples and descendants of enslaved Africans, and to the construction of a social, cultural, political, ethical, and epistemological project aimed at decolonization. In other words, it entails another system of knowledge, another political practice, another society, another way of thinking and acting in relation to and against modernity/coloniality.
A set of ideas emerged in the Indigenous consciousness: the need to develop well-defined, contemporary, and realistic concepts to comprehend and explain the situation of Indigenous peoples while reaffirming their hopes and claims.
“The Indigenous movement and its discourse on interculturality has nothing to do with naïve fantasies of utopic policies of harmony and mutual tolerance,” writes linguist Michael Handelsman. “A truly democratic society must develop new mechanisms and spaces of interaction between its diverse nationalities.”
In 2007, a Constituent Assembly was established in Ecuador. By drafting Ecuador’s 20th Constitution, the social movements had an extraordinary opportunity to implement long-awaited state reform. CONAIE’s proposal reflected a consensus reached after decades of political struggle. It included the fundamental concepts of a plurinationalstate: interculturality, sovereignty, participatory democracy, nature as subject of rights, and the implementation of an alternative paradigm to development known as Sumak Kawsay (plentiful life in harmony with nature.
The main demand of the Indigenous movement was the declaration of Ecuador as a plurinational state.
Reactionary sectors of the Ecuadorian society conducted an aggressive campaign against this new Constitution, accusing the Indigenous and other social movements of separatism and radicalism, and the state has failed to follow through on its constitutional commitments.
By continuing to identify themselves as nationalities with collective rights, and by proposing other notions of nation and democracy, the Indigenous peoples of Ecuador are challenging the multicultural frame of global capitalism.
As Prof. Catherine Walsh of Universidad Andina Simon Bolivar in Quito points out, interculturality “questions and defies coloniality of power while making visible and problematic the colonial difference … [It] offers a way of thinking from difference to decolonization, and in the long term, the construction of a radically different society.”
By Eric House
In true SIT spirit, Emma Vos is broadening her horizons. She completed SIT’s International Honors Program (IHP) in Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship in 2018, an interdisciplinary program that takes students to four continents to compare development, social change, and management. As Vos began to expand her understanding of global systems and their shortcomings, she built a community of like-minded peers and an academic support system that led her to pursue her MA in Climate Change and Global Sustainability at SIT Graduate Institute.
We caught up with her in the Galapagos Islands to learn how her studies are shaping her personally, academically, and professionally.
What made you pursue the IHP Social Innovation program, and what was your experience like?
As an undergrad, I had always found it quite challenging to commit to a specific discipline of study, so much so that my undergraduate degree ended up being an accumulation of credits from four different institutions. Once I had finally committed to a degree in global studies, the IHP Social Innovation curriculum arrived as the ideal marriage of themes and discourse to concretize links between the local and global. I began mapping myriad global system failings, their manifestations, and diverse responses to them. In many ways, IHP presented the type of interdisciplinarity study I always sought in an undergraduate program.
What was a significant lesson or experience you took away during your time in the program?
The program took our cohort to San Francisco, Kampala, New Delhi, and Sao Paulo. Being able to start drawing connections between such diverse places, each with nuanced sociopolitical realities, even back then, became a core underpinning of my future thinking and work. More specifically, IHP stressed the importance of building dialogue and projects between international communities and contexts. This lesson has become a lasting source of inspiration for me and the work I pursue.
After completing that program, you decided to pursue your master’s degree in Climate Change and Global Sustainability with SIT. What made you want to study these fields?
I am lucky to say that many of my closest friendships today are from my IHP program. Having a supportive community of individuals who are critical of the spaces they spend time in and are unafraid to try something new has been central to my confidence in prioritizing new learning journeys. I think many who pursue a program like IHP have an itch for continuous questioning while they are surrounded by like-minded, supportive, and loving individuals. This drives many to embark on new adventures, such as this master’s.
Understanding the climate crisis as a social justice issue with intersections between human rights and design is vital in driving my ambitions while also solidifying my knowledge base.
In relation to climate change, IHP concretized for me the symptoms of a broken system. My work highlighted just how significant a role the current climate crisis plays in exacerbating a global web of challenges. Understanding the climate crisis as a social justice issue with intersections between human rights and design is vital in driving my ambitions while also solidifying my knowledge base.
How would you describe your experience so far in your graduate program? Is there a particular project you’re working on that you’re excited about?
This graduate program has contributed to one of the most enriching and grounding years for me. I have felt incredibly challenged and supported throughout, and I have been given the liberty to explore so many of my varying interests. I recently completed a research paper on sites of eco-spiritual acculturation in Ecuador and how this may present a paradox in the realms of global environmentalism.
This graduate program has contributed to one of the most enriching and grounding years for me. I have felt incredibly challenged and supported throughout, and I have been given the liberty to explore so many of my varying interests.
I explored the history and politics of American missionary presence in Ecuador and its dominant points of tension with local eco-spiritual ideologies. I analyzed interaction points between exported religiosity, local conceptions of nature, and eco-spiritual practice. I argued that iterations of eco-spirituality are increasingly found in the public domain and succumb to pressures of hegemony, widely problematizing the notion of global environmentalism.
Now that you’re pursuing your master’s with SIT, you hold a unique distinction of being a double SIT student. What is it about SIT that has made you want to pursue two programs, and how was the transition from undergraduate to graduate with SIT?
With my first experience with SIT, I quickly learned that programs such as IHP aren’t designed to function exclusively within an academic arena. Immersive learning that allows for multifaceted development and emphasizes growth beyond purely academic metrics quickly became the only way I could envision myself re-entering higher education. The transition to graduate school with SIT felt incredibly intuitive. The supporting infrastructure that I relied on during my undergraduate experience felt strongly in place still, and academically, there was room for increased rigor and ownership over my work.
Overall, has your time in these programs influenced your academic or career path?
Absolutely! Familiarizing myself with spaces and communities concerned with similar themes through SIT programs has felt like a continuous exercise in expanding my imagination of what is possible within social justice work. It is an immense privilege to draw from so many diverse perspectives and approaches and bridge these to localities close to home. More recently, exposure to various forms of work that aim to address the implications of the climate crisis has felt incredibly legitimizing. When commonly engaging in critical thinking during these programs, it is easy to experience ‘paralysis by analysis.’ The proposal of any form of solution-building can be put under a microscope and critiqued. Having more case studies to draw from that are aware of their limitations and know where and how they can make a difference has been immeasurably beneficial.
The transition to graduate school with SIT felt incredibly intuitive. The supporting infrastructure that I relied on during my undergraduate experience felt strongly in place still, and academically, there was room for increased rigor and ownership over my work.
What’s next for you?
We are currently in the Galapagos on the very last leg of our adventures in Ecuador. Throughout most of this master’s program, I have tried to approach critical themes through a lens that sits at the intersection of environmental pedagogy and design. In the coming months, I will be completing a practicum in New Zealand focused on what it takes to build environmental education in a just and open manner. Questioning the key tenets of environmental education feels like a vital exercise in developing the future of learning and building the capacity to deal with the complex crises of the present and future.
SIT Ecuador trek breaks new ground in Pristimantis genus awareness
Ecuador boasts extraordinary biodiversity. Over the years, students on SIT’s Ecuador: Comparative Ecology and Conservation program have discovered a potential new species of frog, a marsupial mammal, and an ant. But when Ella Halbert went on a survey expedition in the Llanganates National Park, she found what, so far, look like seven new species of frogs.
Ella, who is from Nashville, Tennesee, attends Oberlin College as a biology and Hispanic studies double major. “The expedition was hands-down the most difficult thing I’ve ever done,” she says. “The conditions required extreme mental and physical toughness. I had never even been camping before going on the expedition, but I decided that it was a challenge I wanted to undertake.”
- Read Ella’s Independent Study Project
Dr. Xavier Silva, academic director of the SIT program, says that finding so many potential new species at once is unusual, even in a place with the biodiversity of Ecuador, where around four new species of amphibian are found each year. “This is due to the fact that some amphibians tend to be hyper endemic, which means that they are only found in a small and specific area of the forest, especially in Andean cloud forests,” Silva says.
Ella took on the unusual challenge of a camping expedition to compare animals living along a newly cut trail that ended at high elevation, examining spots all along the way.
“We hiked to increase elevation during the day,” Ella explains, “and at night we visually surveyed for frogs and took pictures to record all individuals we found. The only exception was when we encountered a potentially new species, in which case we did collect the individual for later molecular analysis.” Included in their records were temperature, humidity, canopy cover, and soil pH.
Ecuador is the sort of place that attracts SIT alumni. In 2018, program alumna and PhD student Jenny Howard (SIT 2008), spent months camping on an island in the Galápagos archipelago to study a seabird called the Nazca booby. The same year, two other program alumnae won grants to continue research on a newly discovered tree species.
The lead researcher with whom Ella worked was Zane Libke, a 2019 alum of program who returned to Ecuador last year after receiving a grant to add portable genetic sequencing to the tools available at Sumak Kawsay In Situ (SKIS), the station where SIT students conduct research.
- Read Zane’s account of his return to Ecuador on the SIT blog.
Alex Bentley, the research coordinator at SKIS, is another program alum. He returned to Ecuador after his time there with SIT in 2015. It was through SKIS that Ella got the chance to go on the lengthy trip along the new trail. She was joined by Zane, volunteer herpetologists, and park staff from Llanganates.
I really liked thinking about the connections between organisms and environmental factors within ecosystems, which strongly parallels the way that myriad factors influence individual health.
Ella Halbert
Alex says the work involved “biodiversity comparisons between lowland and highland, with sampling mostly at night.” The sampling took place primarily visually, but also involved surveys of frog calls.
Ella says most of the species the group observed were of the genus Pristimantis, which contains about 570 species (and counting). With so many, she says, “accurately identifying these species takes a lot of time and practice. Another interesting characteristic of frogs in this genus is that they are direct developers, meaning they don’t go through a tadpole stage.”
Alex explains that species identification with similar frogs comes down to some interesting characteristics, such as the relative lengths of a frog’s fingers, and the details of its tympanic membrane. Thanks to the portable molecular lab Zane helped bring, researchers at SKIS can also check species at a genetic level with a toe clipping.
Silva says confirming new species involves at least several months of examining “comparative DNA testing, morphometric measures, skin compounds, even behavior and vocalizations if possible.”
There was a lot of variety in body color and skin texture among this group that we believe is a new species, but the toes were always consistent.
Ella Halbert
Though she says it was hard to pick a favorite among her discoveries, “If I had to choose from among the potentially new species, I would say the one we dubbed ‘sp. nov red toes,’ because of its characteristic red toes! There was a lot of variety in body color and skin texture among this group that we believe is a new species, but the toes were always consistent.”
Ella plans to go into human biology via medical school when she graduates from Oberlin. Her time studying frog species in Ecuador played a role in that decision. “My experience with SIT, specifically the Independent Study Project, helped solidify my interest in a scientific career, and I really liked thinking about the connections between organisms and environmental factors within ecosystems, which strongly parallels the way that myriad factors influence individual health.”
She recommends the SIT Ecuador program particularly to students who are interested in field science, ecology, and conservation. “The habitat was rugged but beautiful, and the research station truly is ‘in situ,’ right at the foot of the Llanganates National Park.”
Her experiences with the program were unparalleled,” she adds. “I was able to travel to so many different ecosystems within Ecuador, including the Galápagos Islands, which was a game-changer for me. There is a really high quality of interaction with local communities and with the environment itself, making this trip truly special.”
Although SIT program delivery was modified in 2021, SIT Study Abroad and SIT Graduate Institute continued to provide life-changing international experiences for graduate and undergraduate students throughout the year.
Not surprisingly, the challenges brought about by COVID-19 meant that many of the most popular programs in each division were either hybrid or virtual. Nevertheless, students like Tiffany Padilla, who studied Tibetan online, found “immense value in experiencing a study abroad of any kind.”
Read “Insights from a virtual study abroad”
Top 5 SIT Graduate programs in 2021
Based on enrollment, the most popular SIT Graduate Institute programs in 2021 were:
1. Part-time hybrid MA in Sustainable Development
In this two-year program, students learn to support thriving communities and build skills in community development and social change. They work with their professors and cohort online, with brief residencies in Vermont and field courses in Nepal and Mexico.
Read Randal McCoy’s capstone paper, “Black Lives Matter”
2. Part-time hybrid MA in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages)
SIT is a national leader in TESOL training so it’s no surprise that this two-year program continues to rank among SIT’s most popular. Grounded in plurilingual pedagogy and led by experts in the field, the program provides students the opportunity to specialize in one of four subject areas: teacher training, plurilingual pedagogy, teaching refugees and displaced persons, or teaching young learners.
Find out more about plurilingual pedagogy
3. Part-time hybrid MA in International Education
In this two-year hybrid MA, students learn to lead education programs in communities around the world. The program features brief summer residencies on SIT’s scenic Vermont campus and includes electives focused on leadership, peacebuilding, language education, international development, and intercultural service.
Program chair Dr. Sora Friedman talks about her new book
4. Global MA in Climate Change & Global Sustainability
In SIT’s one-year Global Master’s programs, students study in a different country each semester and in most cases complete their final capstone anywhere in the world. Among our first and most popular of these global formats is Climate Change & Global Sustainability. With one semester each in Iceland and Tanzania, students gain the knowledge, skills, and global experience to address climate change and enhance the sustainability of environments and responsible human livelihoods. Alumni from this program have gone on to careers in public policy and NGO fields.
Climate Change alumna Danielle Purvis: ‘The ways of the world must change’
5. Global MA in Diplomacy and International Relations
Students prepare for careers in international, regional, and global affairs or diplomacy to address some of the most critical issues facing the planet. This one-year program takes place in South Africa, Switzerland, and the United States for key points of comparison among U.S., European, and African perspectives as students learn how to function with the global political system.
Program chair Dr. Bruce Dayton: ‘We’re at a tipping point’
Top 5 SIT Study Abroad programs for 2021
Based on enrollment, the most popular SIT Study Abroad programs and countries in 2021 were:
1 & 2. Iceland
SIT Study Abroad’s two most popular programs in 2021 were both immersive experiences in Iceland. Students on our semester program, Climate Change and the Arctic, were drawn to the beauty of Iceland’s glaciers, volcanoes, coastlines and waterfalls. In that dramatic setting, they study climate models and carbon management with experts on the front lines of the fight against climate change.
SIT’s summer program in Iceland, Renewable Energy, Technology & Resource Economics, is similarly focused on climate and environment, attracting students interested in energy policy and renewable energy technologies.
3 & 5. South Africa
Summer and semester Virtual Internships in Diplomacy, Conflict Resolution, and International Relations ranked third and fifth respectively in 2021, preparing students for careers in human rights or global affairs. Both programs explore non-western perspectives on conflict resolution, human rights, international relations, and south-south diplomacy in cooperation with partners like the Africa Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD), Africa’s largest conflict resolution NGO.
4. Kenya
Another virtual internship in Africa ranked among our top 5. On our summer program Kenya: Virtual Internship in Public Health in the Tropics students have the opportunity to intern with a community or research organization, business, government agency, or NGO. This program is carried out in partnership with the Kenya Medical Research Institute, the Centers for Disease Control, and other organizations working on public health issues in Kisumu. (The semester version of this program was also popular, coming in sixth in our 2021 ranking.)
#1 Muse: Ecuador
Last but not least, we would be remiss if we failed to include Ecuador in this list as the country that inspires some of the most prolific writing among our students and alumni.
I was captivated by the Ecuador’s immense, thriving biodiversity.
Zane Libke
This program has caused me to reflect a lot on what exactly the goal of ‘development’ is, on what changes I actually want to make in the world, and how one should go about making change.
Meg Edwards
Exploring the cloud forest for five days and our trip to the Amazon was like, ‘Someone pinch me, I think I’m dreaming’.
Halle Catalina Brown
By Zane Libke
During my time with the fall 2019 Ecuador: Comparative Ecology and Conservation program, I was captivated by the Ecuador’s immense, thriving biodiversity. I spent my Independent Study Project (ISP) studying frog communities at the research station Sumak Kawsay In Situ. While this study helped to designate areas of conservation priority, contributed to the first field guide on herpetofauna in the region, and registered several undescribed species, I wanted to do more.
DNA sequencing is an indispensable tool in biodiversity research, but it’s incredibly difficult to access in the most biodiverse regions of the world.
Back home, I learned about new advances in portable sequencing equipment and quickly realized the potential impact this kind of technology could have if deployed in biodiversity hot spots. DNA sequencing is an indispensable tool in biodiversity research, but it’s incredibly difficult to access in the most biodiverse regions of the world.
With new advances in portable sequencing equipment and my training in genomics, I realized that this was a problem I could help to solve. With a $5,000 grant from my alma mater and some of my own personal savings, I moved to Sumak Kawsay In Situ field station (SKIS) to start the first field genomics lab in Ecuador together with SKIS, Fundación Ecominga, and INABIO.
With this field-based genomics lab, I can perform the entire process of DNA extraction, amplification, visualization, and sequencing without ever leaving the field. Currently, I’m conducting field and laboratory work to generate sequence data for all 149 species of reptiles and amphibians registered at the station (download the guide here).
For the majority of these species, little or no genetic sequence data exists. Thus, this project will not only help to describe several new species we’ve encountered but will also contribute novel sequencing data to a public-access database for use in worldwide comparative genetic diversity studies.
In a collaborative project with Fundación Ecominga and IKIAM, we are using cutting-edge environmental DNA sampling to detect new populations of the critically endangered toad Atelopus palmatus. Most organisms leave behind traces of DNA in their day-to-day life, and we can detect and sequence these DNA fragments in our genomics laboratory. With this research, we can ensure that Ecominga’s next conservation purchase in the area will protect this important species.
The genetic information that will come out of this project will greatly contribute to our knowledge of Ecuador’s astounding biodiversity.
With Ecominga, I am also working to describe several new frog species from the Cerro Candelaria reserve and developing a method to sample large mammals using fur samples found near camera traps throughout the Corredor Ecologico Llanganates-Sangay (CELS).
In January and February 2022, I will be working with Instituto Nacional De Biodiversidad (INABIO) to sequence museum samples of frogs, reptiles, mammals, insects, plants, and fungi, and train their laboratory technicians in nanopore sequencing. Over the years, INABIO has amassed the one of the most comprehensive biological collections in the country. Just like the herpetofauna at SKIS, many of these specimens have never been sequenced by science. As such, the genetic information that will come out of this project will greatly contribute to our knowledge of Ecuador’s astounding biodiversity.
At SKIS, environmental education is central to what we do. As such, we are making every effort to teach Ecuador’s next generation of scientists and conservationists in the use of these cutting-edge molecular biology techniques.
We are making every effort to teach Ecuador’s next generation of scientists and conservationists in the use of these cutting-edge molecular biology techniques.
Together with the university IKIAM, we put on the first field-based herpetology and genetics course in Ecuador, where students learned both the field and laboratory aspects of herpetology and genetic analysis, all without leaving the rain forest. At SKIS, we are continuing these efforts by running a volunteer program, where students participate in our research projects, gaining valuable experience and training in both herpetology and genomics.
Zane Libke participated in SIT Ecuador: Comparative Ecology and Conservation in fall 2019. He is a graduate of Davidson College.
This story is reprinted with permission from Ohio Wesleyan University.
(Photos courtesy of Meg Edwards)
Name: Meg Edwards ’22
Hometown: Columbus, Ohio
Major: International Studies and Spanish
Experience: SIT Ecuador: Development, Politics, and Languages
By Cole Hatcher
During her semester in Ecuador, Meg Edwards participated in a variety of learning experiences including in-classroom lectures on the Ecuadorian political context, research methods/ethics, Kichwa language, and a two-week intensive Spanish course. She also participated in excursions to different parts of the country and completed a month-long independent study project that included independent field work.
This program has caused me to reflect a lot on what exactly the goal of ‘development’ is, on what changes I actually want to make in the world, and how one should go about making change.
Why I Chose Ecuador
“The words ‘development, politics, and languages’ essentially sum up my academic interests. More importantly though, I was excited that SIT offered a host-family component (unfortunately canceled due to the pandemic) and the independent study project (ISP), which provides an opportunity to practice field work and truly immerse oneself in the Ecuadorian context. That, and Ecuador is an incredible country in which to study sustainable development due to its extremely rich biodiversity and unique environmental history.”
My Favorite Moment
“There have been many remarkable moments but the first to come to mind is during our excursion to the Galapagos when we climbed the volcano, Sierra Negra, which created the island of Isabela.
The independent study project (ISP) … provides an opportunity to practice field work and truly immerse oneself in the Ecuadorian context.
“One of the remarkable things about the Galapagos is how one can see the process of evolution happening in real time and witness the difference between the dry volcanic beaches, the rich tropical highlands, and the bare, brand-new volcanic rock around the crater: completely different biomes that exist within a few kilometers of each other on each island.
“You don’t have to be an ecologist there to recognize the importance of topsoil to support life and the complexity and fragility of all ecosystems.”
Lessons Learned
“This program has caused me to reflect a lot on what exactly the goal of ‘development’ is, on what changes I actually want to make in the world, and how one should go about making change. We talk a lot about post-development alternatives and the unintentional harm that can be caused by development efforts, which is extremely important to consider as I continue studying and look for work in my field.
Oftentimes, well-meaning students from the U.S. imagine that the whole world ought to live like we do, and that is what development means. In this program, I have learned more about locally driven development and the many different ways of life around the world.
“For example, recently we went on an excursion to stay in the Intag Zone in the province of Imbabura, which is a highly biodiverse cloud forest home to several agricultural communities, and also the target of mining concessions. These communities are actively resisting being displaced by copper mining companies, and we spoke to a few community leaders about their efforts to strengthen the community by developing ecotourism and organizing collectives to sell artisan crafts. I am excited to continue learning about these alternative forms of development during my Independent Study Project.
‘Life Around the World’
“These experiences in rural communities have been impactful because they help me relativize the ideas of poverty and development and understand the complexity of life in different cultural and political contexts. Oftentimes, well-meaning students from the U.S. imagine that the whole world ought to live like we do, and that is what development means. In this program, I have learned more about locally driven development and the many different ways of life around the world.
“I didn’t know it at the time, but an independent study with Dr. Alper Yalçinkaya, in which we discussed the causes of global inequality and the sociology of global development, has been very useful during this program.”
Another Meaningful ‘OWU Connection’
“Last summer I traveled around the United States using a Theory-to-Practice Grant and interviewed 16 farmers about their perspectives on agricultural policy, environmental regulation, and changes in the agricultural industry. This was an opportunity for me, a student from the suburbs with an interest in sustainable agriculture, to learn about the industry from farmers themselves. I also wanted to amplify the voices of individual farmers who are often excluded from policy discussions.
“I compiled information from the interviews into a storymap, which is currently posted on my personal website. I would love to share these farmers’ stories more widely, and anyone interested in publishing it or about it should contact me.”
Why I Chose Ohio Wesleyan
“I chose OWU because I was impressed by the diversity of options for travel: Travel-Learning Courses, study abroad, and Theory-to-Practice Grants, and because I felt very welcomed when visiting campus. I’m very grateful that even with the disruption of the pandemic, I will graduate having traveled to multiple countries and completed independent research.”
I would like to contribute to efforts to adapt to and mitigate climate change through public policy …
My Plans After Graduation
“I do not have any specific post-graduation plans. I would like to contribute to efforts to adapt to and mitigate climate change through public policy, be that with a nonprofit organization or in government. Ohio Wesleyan has provided me with opportunities to explore and define what it is I want to do and what is important to me.”
Each year, the U.S. Departments of Education and State designate a week to spotlight the importance of international education. “International education enhances cultural and linguistic diversity and helps to develop cross-cultural communication skills, foreign language competencies, and enhanced self-awareness and understanding of diverse perspectives,” this year’s statement reads.
At SIT, we welcome this opportunity to focus on the importance of the work we do year-round. And there is no better way to highlight this work than through the voices of our students and alumni.
Halle Catalina Brown studied abroad on SIT Ecuador: Comparative Ecology and Conservation in 2019. That experience was so foundational that she continues to blog about it and the Ecuador connections she made during her time there.
Ecuador study abroad excursion feels like an ‘unimaginable, wild dream’
My heart sank as I observed the destruction of some of the most wild and beautiful nature I’ve ever seen and the deep suffering of the people.
“I fell in love with the Amazon,” Halle writes in this blog post. “… Oftentimes, I would remind myself that the nature I was exploring has only been seen by a countable quantity of eyes. Possibly countable only on my fingers and toes. Which is the reason I find it so important to also provide education on the ways we are destroying this wildness.”
She goes on to describe in detail the shocking corporate and government practices that are destroying natural resources and local communities. “My heart sank as I observed the destruction of some of the most wild and beautiful nature I’ve ever seen and the deep suffering of the people. And we are all to blame.”
It’s no doubt that the pandemic has challenged our students’ ability to physically cross borders and experience other cultures in person, but that hasn’t deterred many students who are intent on enhancing their international education and expanding their world view.
Chile virtual internship offers new ‘vantage point’ on social change
I learned a lot about Chilean culture and was able to experience it from a close perspective …
In fall 2020, Spelman College international studies major Alix Swann joined SIT for Chile: Virtual Internship in Education & Social Change Organizations. “At first, I was apprehensive about the online experience, but it ended up being incredibly impactful,” Alix told us. “I learned a lot about Chilean culture and was able to experience it from a close perspective, as well as work with an organization who does a lot of work for women’s rights on the ground.”
University of Arkansas Honors College Fellow Meghana Chithirala, a pre-med junior, had planned to spend the summer polishing her language skills in France. When the pandemic interrupted those plans, Meghana joined SIT Kenya: Virtual Internship in Public Health in the Tropics.
SIT virtual internship with Kenyan hospital offers insights on public health
This internship was honestly one of the greatest opportunities I had been given.
Meghana’s rotations—in an HIV clinic and pediatrics, critical care, and neonatal units at Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Teaching and Referral Hospital in Kisumu—were an eye-opening introduction to public health, as well as the benefits of online internships. “I was exposed to a multitude of issues in the Kenyan health care system and how third-world countries are trying to utilize their limited resources,” Meghana wrote.
“This internship was honestly one of the greatest opportunities I had been given,” she concluded.
Gretta Marston-Lari was born in Peru and came to the United States with her parents as a young teen. A Latin American studies and theater major at Macalester College, Gretta returned to Peru with SIT on a program focused on indigenous communities and globalization.
Semester in Peru inspires musical
I felt that I was finally learning what I had been longing to learn in all of my college courses.
“I felt that I was finally learning what I had been longing to learn in all of my college courses. … The study abroad experience fed my soul in a way that was really needed and that I had been waiting for since I left Peru at age 14.”
As her final project, Gretta wrote a musical, Como la Tierra (“Like the Earth”) that tells the story of an indigenous community’s struggle to block a copper mine. “We had been learning a lot about how indigenous bodies of knowledge exist in an oral tradition. To me, theater in a large way is an exchange of knowledge, and it’s oral. I thought this was the best way I could connect to what was happening and to contribute to further their struggle,” she told us.
During an exceptionally challenging year, Danielle Purvis earned her MA from SIT in Climate Change & Global Sustainability, a one-year global program that includes a semester each in Iceland and Zanzibar.
‘The ways of this world must change‘
… we get to be on the front lines of building new bridges and creating a new way of life.
“On top of the typical challenges of a graduate degree, the Class of 2021 completed their degrees entirely or almost entirely during a global pandemic. My cohort, for instance, experienced a lock down, then an evacuation, and then a lock down and an evacuation,” Danielle told her graduating class during a moving speech at her commencement in August.
“I am completing this experience with a blend of gratitude for the resources available to me and a commitment to see these bountiful resources distributed as equitably as possible. I am completing this experience with a global lens of how we are inextricably connected to each other and to our natural environment. And I know, more than ever before, that the ways of this world are unsustainable and must change, and that we get to be on the front lines of building new bridges and creating a new way of life,” she said.
School for International Training is pleased to announce the launch of the Fall 2021 SIT Critical Conversations Webinar Series beginning in mid-September. Building upon the success of two previous series, these free webinars are designed to inspire community-wide dialogue on global, interdisciplinary topics within SIT’s Critical Global Issues framework.
— Register now for fall 2021 Critical Conversations.
As keynote speaker for this series, Homi K. Bhabha will discuss representations and epistemologies of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). Considered a leading voice in postcolonial theory, Bhabha is the Anne F. Rothenberg Professor of the Humanities in the English and Comparative Literature Departments at Harvard University.
“This semester, we continue to focus our attention on the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion as it pertains to our students, partners, and community,” says Meghan McMillan, SIT Graduate Programs Outreach Manager. “We hope these new webinars will engage the wider SIT community in important dialogues at a critical time.”
Other speakers represent a diverse pool of researchers, scholars, and community leaders including SIT faculty, program alumni, and thought leaders from partner schools in the United States and abroad.
The fall 2021 series includes 19 free webinars over three months. Topics range from Gen Z and DEI in education abroad; critical tools in gender and queer studies; and even soap making and cooking demonstrations.
The sessions will help prospective students experience an SIT program, navigate the admissions process, and hear from distinguished SIT alumni, and virtual open houses will give participants a glimpse into SIT locations in Samoa, India, and Ecuador.
These events aim to expand on the Critical Conversations Webinar Series in fall 2020 and spring 2021. Those webinars provided a platform for SIT to engage with members of our various communities when in-person events were not possible. More than 2,500 faculty, staff, alumni, and other global citizens participated in the two semester-long series.
To view the full schedule of events and register for the fall 2021 series, visit the Critical Conversations webpage. The sessions are free and open to all. SIT encourages participation from partner institutions and alumni, as well as those discovering SIT for the first time.
Links to recordings of most webinars will also be available on the Critical Conversations page shortly after each event.
By Halle Catalina Brown
An Ecuador study abroad excursion feels like an ‘unimaginable, wild dream’
Halle Catalina Brown studied abroad on SIT Ecuador: Comparative Ecology and Conservation in fall 2019 and blogged about her experiences. This article and photos from her blog are reprinted with permission.
Exploring the cloud forest for five days and our trip to the Amazon was like, ‘Someone pinch me, I think I’m dreaming’.
“Ah! Found stinging nettle!” Shannon yelled from deep within the jungle of Marantaceae plants. I stepped off the trail to follow behind her, cringing at her pain yet laughing at the ridiculousness of the situation. We were only two meters off the path, but for all the vegetation that engrossed us, we could have been in the dead center of the Ecuadorian cloud forest. The leaves were the length of half our bodies and each plant grew centimeters from each other, creating a dense forest of vines and moss. Decaying wood and slick mud were underfoot, likely housing a variety of insects and spiders in the silvery webs.
I eventually pushed my way to the area Shannon was standing, carefully avoiding all leaves that looked remotely like stinging nettle. She was bent over a growth of mushrooms like lacy shelves on a dead piece of wood.
Our plan was to survey the area 2 meters on either side of the trail, noting the type of material the mushrooms grew on and at what height. We didn’t realize that the vegetation flourishing on either side of the trail was so thick it was nearly impossible to maneuver our bodies into it.
“Damn, that stuff really stings!” She exclaimed before reaching for her field notebook to jot down data. I grinned and surveyed the sample she had found.
In actuality, we were in the middle of the Ecuadorian cloud forest. We had spent the last few days at the Santa Lucia Reserve, which was so remote that mules had to carry our overnight backpacks up to the top of the mountain where the ecolodge sits. Unfortunately, we did not get to ride the mules, but climbed up the grueling, steep trail ourselves which took close to three hours. However, our professor did stop us every 10 minutes to discuss a variety of plant families or to point out a bird. When I say bird, I mean any bird. Even every Tawny-bellied Hermit, which looks exactly as it sounds: brown and boring.
Many of us often used it as an excuse for a change of subject or a short break. In the middle of a long lecture on the copious plant families that exist in the cloud forest, someone would whisper frantically and point at a far-off tree, “Xavier, look!” Xavier, our program director and lead professor, immediately lost his thought, pulled out his binoculars, and searched the canopy. We’d spend 10 or so minutes peering out and watching a small bird flit between branches, before Xavier identified it and felt ready to move on.
The moths that thrive in the Ecuadorian cloud forest are anything but average. Vibrant shades of orange and yellow, eye-like spots, some replicate leaves exactly, and some could be mistaken for birds because of their size.
We did find some beautiful birds, though. A toucanet perched outside the dining hall with an emerald green chest and long yellow beak. A Golden-Headed Quetzal calling softly from the canopy and ruffling his crimson and blue feathers. A wide variety of hummingbirds including the Long-Tailed Sylph, which, as you can imagine, has a tail twice or more the length of its body.
We also learned the methodology of mist netting, in which we set up three very thin nests along the ridge of the mountain to catch unassuming birds for two hours in the morning. We checked the nets every 30 minutes to minimize the time the birds spent stressed in captivity. Once caught, we measured their beak, wing, and tail length and identified the species. Many of the birds we studied were hummingbirds with a body weight less than 5 or 6 grams and bright, iridescent feathers.
Another study we conducted focused on the biodiversity and distribution of moths. If you’re thinking about the types of moths that live in the States — greyish-brown, fuzzy, and relatively small — allow me to explain. The moths that thrive in the Ecuadorian cloud forest are anything but average. Vibrant shades of orange and yellow, eye-like spots, some replicate leaves exactly, and some could be mistaken for birds because of their size.
We hung a sheet over a clothesline and shined a light on it. We didn’t have to wait long until it was covered in moths of all shapes and sizes. Each group was assigned a part of the sheet: back, front, left, or right, and measured the wingspans and identified the families of each moth in our quadrants. Within 10 minutes, we were covered in moths. They flew into our hair, on our faces, and all over our clothes. Tara, one of my research partners, accidentally smushed one in her notebook. Once we finished collecting data, we tried to no avail to rid ourselves of the moths before returning to the ecolodge.
It was one of the many crazy experiences of that week.
We did find some beautiful birds. A toucanet perched outside the dining hall with an emerald green chest and long yellow beak. A Golden-Headed Quetzal calling softly from the canopy and ruffling his crimson and blue feathers.
Speaking of crazy experiences, this brings me back to the mushrooms. Four of us chose to study the types of mushrooms and where they grow between the cloud forest and the Amazon for our Comparative Investigation Project. Our plan was to survey the area 2 meters on either side of the trail, noting the type of material the mushrooms grew on and at what height. We didn’t realize that the vegetation flourishing on either side of the trail was so thick it was nearly impossible to maneuver our bodies into it.
I emphasize “nearly” impossible because we did it, but not necessarily pleasantly or easily. We crashed through the vines and leaves, often falling into seemingly invisible holes and making new friends with ants and spiders in the soil. But, we found beautiful and exotic mushrooms, often growing on decaying plant matter. Some looked like iridescent jelly and others like rust-colored shells. We emerged from each site, our clothes streaked chlorophyll green from the plants and spotted with mud, but giggling, and with smiles from ear to ear.
Xavier spoke to us about the intensity of the program and the heavy work load. He told us, “This is just a small taste of reality.” He was referring to juggling many assignments at once and never being ahead of your to-do list, but I couldn’t get past his word “reality.” Exploring the cloud forest for five days and our upcoming trip to the Amazon was by no means a reality. More like, “Someone pinch me, I think I’m dreaming.”
I feel more than grateful for the opportunity to explore and study these unbelievable, off-the-grid places that exist nowhere else in the world. And do I mention they are quickly fading away? From the deforestation for banana plantations to petroleum exploitation, the untouched beauty is being destroyed faster and faster. I know one day, very soon, it will all be wiped away by our greed to bleak piles of dirt and plumes of gas from the lush, vibrant biodiversity it is now. And my children and grandchildren will never see it, as I’m seeing it, with their own eyes.
So my gratitude is beyond anything I could begin to describe. As I gather my clothes, rain gear, and bug spray (tons and tons of bug spray) for the Amazon, I cannot believe I am experiencing this unimaginable, wild dream as a reality.
An SIT Study Abroad scholar will return to the Amazon this year to support workshops that will help indigenous communities learn about their land rights and how to protect themselves from illegal incursions. Emily Pugh will undertake this work as the newest Alice Rowan Swanson fellow.
Pugh originally planned to spend summer 2020 volunteering with a Kichwa ecotourism program in the Ecuadorian Amazon. While her plans were interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, Pugh stayed in touch with her community liaison in Ecuador and learned that there had been an increase in illegal encroachment on indigenous land by mining and petroleum operations that were taking advantage of looser government oversight during the pandemic.
“This Ecuadorian community…also relies on ecotourism and agriculture, and particularly living off of the land,” Pugh says. “So, this is something that is crucial to their way of life and, economically, to their living.”
Local leaders had proposed a series of workshops to help raise awareness of land rights in their communities and offer an opportunity for members of local governments to learn about the issues their indigenous constituents are facing. Pugh applied for the Alice Rowan Swanson fellowship to contribute to their efforts.
“These workshops are designed by the community to empower its members to know their human rights to land and safety,” she notes, adding, “families need to know what support they do have and how to access that support when need be.”
Now a senior at Claremont McKenna College in California, Pugh became interested in working with indigenous communities in Latin America while taking part in SIT Study Abroad’s Peru: Indigenous Peoples & Globalization program in 2019. Her SIT program, along with additional courses taken once she returned home, inspired her to look for ways to carry out participatory projects that would help support communities’ “goals of self-determination and authorship.” Pugh writes that she was drawn to the Alice Rowan Swanson fellowship because of its focus on collaborating with local communities and organizations.
“I want to support a project that was originally developed by the communities it is for,” she states.
To carry out this project, Pugh is partnering with two indigenous organizations in the Ecuadorian Amazon, Indigenous People of the Kichwa Nationality of the Santa Clara Canton and Yamaram Jintia Tayu Jee, as well as the Inti Samay dance group, online radio station La plena, and the NGO Omprakash. She will work with her partners on planning this spring, before arriving in Ecuador in May to support workshops that will be held over seven to eight weeks this summer.
The Alice Rowan Swanson Fellowship was established in 2009 by the family of SIT Study Abroad Nicaragua 2006 alumna Alice Rowan Swanson as a living tribute to her life, her desire to bridge cultures and help others, and the role that SIT Study Abroad played in her life. A 2007 graduate of Amherst College, Alice was killed while riding her bicycle to work in 2008.
The program awards fellowships twice annually to SIT Study Abroad and IHP alumni to pursue human rights projects.
This year, eight SIT Study Abroad alumni are among twenty students selected to present their research at the prestigious Human Development Conference, which will be held online February 26-27. The annual student-led conference is sponsored by the University of Notre Dame’s Kellogg Institute for International Studies. This year’s theme is “The Future is Now: Innovative Responses to Global Adversity.” Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, all students will be presenting virtually.
“On behalf of everyone at the School for International Training (SIT), I would like to extend a heartfelt congratulations to the alumni of our programs who will participate in the prestigious 13th annual Human Development Conference at University of Notre Dame, as well as all the students from across the country, and the academic spectrum, who will have the opportunity to share their development-focused research,” said SIT President Dr. Sophia Howlett.
SIT has been a sponsor of the conference since the inaugural 2008 event. Independent research is a critical component of SIT Study Abroad’s immersive, semester-long programs, which require students to complete original fieldwork, a final presentation, and a formal research paper.
Sarah Ahmed
Psychology and Counseling
Wake Forest University
SIT India: Sustainable Development and Social Change
Research: “Breaking the Silence: Examining Mental Health Stigma, Literacy, and Access in Urban India”
My study abroad experience completely changed my academic goals! It inspired me to work in the mental health field, and starting this fall I will be starting a master’s program in Clinical Mental Health Counseling. I’m grateful for SIT for giving me the opportunity to know myself better, and in turn, know how to best serve those around me in purposeful and meaningful ways.
Alison Cummins
Sociology, minors in English and Creative Writing
Muhlenberg College
SIT Nepal: Development, Gender, and Social Change in the Himalaya
Research: Creating Writing During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Nepal and United States Perspectives
I settled on my research topic after being sent home from abroad because of the pandemic. I felt very dejected in my own creative writing at the time and was wondering if other writers were feeling the same. Choosing to find out through sociological research, I began to craft a research project that would help me to understand how writers were dealing with the pandemic. I reached out to Nepali and American writers and was soon on the path to understanding the cultural impacts of the pandemic on creative writers in these two countries.
Katherine Fulcher
Political Science and Hispanic Studies
University of Tennessee, Knoxville
SIT Mexico: Migration, Borders, and Transnational Communities
Research: “‘A Tale of Twinned Cities’: A Comparative Analysis to Predict Potential Twinning on the US-Mexico Border”
My research looks specifically at the state of border twinning across Europe, but the implications of this research could help policymakers understand the potential for a similar process in other regions of the world, like the US-Mexico border. Following graduation, I plan to work for a year before applying for a graduate program in international relations or public policy.
Samuel Johnston
Economics and Mathematics
Willamette University
SIT Uganda: Global Development Studies
Research: “Coordination or Clustering: Logistic Estimation of Aid Fragmentation in Uganda”
I first settled on the topic during our Contemporary Global Development seminar course, where multiple guest lecturers discussed the frustrating lack of cooperation by international donors in Uganda and many other countries….After completing a primarily qualitative and literature-focused study for my SIT Independent Study Project, I decided to continue my research in a more quantitative sense for my senior thesis in economics at Willamette…In the future, I’m interested in pursuing graduate study in economics with a specific focus in development and international cooperation.
Daniel Krugman
Anthropology, minor in African Studies
Middlebury College
SIT Uganda: Global Development Studies
Research: “Survival as Solidarity: Refugee Exchange, Humanitarian Violence, and Social Cohesion in Mirieyi Settlement, Northern Uganda”
After graduation, I hope to continue to understand the dynamics of global forced migration and work towards the abolition of refuge in graduate school.
Jaran Rudd
Anthropology and Spanish
Austin College
SIT Ecuador: Development, Politics, and Languages
Research: “How Covid-19 has Deepened the Environmental Crisis Among the Kichwa: A Discourse Analysis”
I settled on this research topic after Covid-19 disrupted our study abroad experience and I began to wonder how the Kichwa community that our group visited was reacting to this pandemic. When I learned that floods and oil spills were also causing troubles for their community, I knew that I needed to look at the question of development to make sense of this unique situation…I hope to pursue a PhD in anthropology and continue investigating the role of international financial institutions, NGOs, and the political-economic power of language across multiple cultural contexts.
Noah Stanton
Public Health and History, minors in Anthropology and Chinese
Vanderbilt University
SIT India: Public Health, Gender, and Community Action
Research: Mother Nature Meets Modern Woman: An Exploration of Environment, Gender, and Urbanism Amongst Delhi’s Middle Class
I decided on my research topic after reading a book called “Ecofeminism” by Vandana Shiva, a renowned Indian activist….India’s fascinating history of rapid development and urbanization, coupled with its unique cultural ties to nature, inspired me to explore the Ecofeminism framework in the context of women in Delhi. Since departing from India, I have become much more focused on issues of women’s health, international development, and environmental justice; this shift has informed my job search as I look to work with a global health NGO after I graduate this May.
Liz Williams
Political Science and Sociology
University of Tulsa
SIT Senegal: Global Security and Religious Pluralism
Research: Thiéboudienne: A Look into the Intersection of Cuisine and Community in Senegal
The emphasis placed on decolonial thinking [during my SIT program] by both students and faculty alike has forever changed my perception of academia. The lessons I learned in Senegal and throughout my research process impact the interactions I have with systems and institutions daily. I am now better equipped to understand my positionality as a student and researcher and how my disciplines operate within the Western gaze. I intend to take this knowledge with me to law school and continue to challenge colonial ways of thinking and operating.
A year after his study abroad, Ian Handler joined a summer conservation effort in South America
As a Duke University student in fall 2018, Ian Handler studied abroad on SIT Ecuador: Comparative Ecology and Conservation. Last summer, he returned to Ecuador and other South American countries to work in conservation sciences. Following is a blog post he wrote about that experience. It is reprinted here with permission.
By Ian Handler
Last summer, I spent a month and a half in the field in South America, camera trapping for an organization called Saving Species (since restarted as Saving Nature). The goal of the organization is to work with reserves in various biodiversity hot spots globally to acquire land and create wildlife corridors. Corridors are connecting strips of land that, when forested, can connect isolated plots of forest. This sometimes means connecting multiple reserves or one fragmented reserve.
Much of the forest in South America is directly abutted by pasture or otherwise clear-cut land. This inhibits the interchange of individuals between forest fragments, excepting those species which thrive in disturbed forest. The consequential halt of gene flow severely limits the species richness of each fragment.
In fact, due to reasons including increased edge effects, limited resources, and limited genetic diversity, two medium-sized fragments of primary forest can support far fewer species than the large swath that would be created by combining the two. Therein lies the importance of the wildlife corridor which theoretically does just that.
The goal of the organization is to work with reserves in various biodiversity hot spots globally to acquire land and create wildlife corridors.
My work involved placing camera traps in the field at various reserves in Brazil (Atlantic coastal forest) and Ecuador (Chóco ecosystem), retrieving data from those cameras already in the field, and performing vegetation surveys at each camera site to attempt to quantify the forest structure in a way that could be compared. I was also part of some drone imaging which will allow for analysis of the reforestation progress in acquired land. I did this at the Reserva Poço das Antas and Reserva Ecológica de Guapiaçu in Brazil and at Jama-Coaque Ecological Reserve in Ecuador.
Much of the work involved planning at night using maps and GPS to determine the most valuable spots for cameras, followed by hiking out and determining on a micro level where the camera should be placed. There is a bit of a science to camera trap placement because you at once need to place the camera where wild animals will be passing, but ideally hidden from poachers, of which there are many.
Poachers often break or steal the cameras out of fear that the footage might be used to identify them. This means you need to find game trails that are unused by poachers and/or obscure the cameras on frequented trails while making sure not to obstruct the sight.
While in Brazil, I was able to partake in some field veterinary missions which included tattooing the highly endangered golden lion tamarin and radio collaring the prehensile tail porcupine and three toed sloth. In Ecuador, I did a bit of mist netting and bird release after banding.
There is a bit of a science to camera trap placement because you at once need to place the camera where wild animals will be passing, but ideally hidden from poachers, of which there are many.
The areas differed greatly in terms of primary vs secondary forest, various stages of reforestation, and zeroscapes. In some reserves, corridors were already functioning or being built, while in others, they are still in the land acquisition stage. Thus, the data collected from these cameras can be used in multiple ways.
For those preexisting corridors, this data is an annual assessment of reforestation and can determine what stage of recovery a forest must be in for certain species to use it or cross it. For areas where land has yet to be acquired, the within forest and forest edge data is very important to determine which species would be affected by corridor establishment.
Finally, the photos are also great for conservation fundraising because they show all of the lurking beauty within the jungle and inspire those who have never set foot in the jungle to feel deeply connected to it and its preservation.
Ana María is an Ecuadorian scientist with a bachelor’s degree in biology and chemistry from Central University of Ecuador and an MS in ecosystem management from the Autonomous University of Baja California, México. She has experience in research projects in the fields of biology, ecology, conservation, and taxonomy of terrestrial and aquatic invertebrates and is one of the most important Ecuadorian investigators of water quality analysis using macro-invertebrates as biological indicators, research which is used by several SIT students each semester for their Independent Study Projects (ISP). Ana María has participated in several ecology and conservation projects in the Ecuadorian Amazon Region and the Galápagos Islands. Her training in ecosystem management has led her to participate in projects for the development of natural resources management plans in Mexico and Ecuador. She is one of the authors of the book Beetles of Ecuador, one of the most comprehensive information about Coleoptera in the country. Ana María has served as guest lecturer, ISP advisor, and field guide for this program.
We are pleased to announce the winners of SIT’s 2019 Photo Contest.
Thank you to all who submitted! The quality and number of submissions was remarkable and revealed SIT students’ great eye for capturing the learning experiences they’re enjoying around the world.
Here are this year’s talented winners.
Learning Moments
Sage Fox
Oregon State University
Ecuador: Comparative Ecology and Conservation, fall 2018
My friend Caleb and I conducted our ISP in a fairly remote village of Ecuador. When we first met our host family, our host sister took us on a hike to a rock that overlooks the valley below. She was very curious about us, and she was especially intrigued by our binoculars. When we reached the summit, she borrowed my binoculars to see if she could find a bear or her house below. Soon losing interest in that, she turned to look up at Caleb through the binoculars.
Action Shots
Anya Otterson
University of Denver
Mongolia: Nomadism, Geopolitics, and the Environment, fall 2018
During my internship, we ran into a herd of my boss’s horses as we were driving back to camp one day. He got on the horse I was riding, put on my deel and boots, and herded them as fast as he could across the steppe while I drove ahead with my other boss taking photos.
The World Is Your Classroom
Thomas D’Anieri
Claremont McKenna College
Mongolia: Nomadism, Geopolitics, and the Environment, fall 2018
I woke up and had to use the bathroom, so I crawled out of my wool sleeping bag, put on two extra layers of clothes, strapped up my dog-fur boots, tiptoed out of the ger, and stopped in my tracks. I had never seen anything like it. The Milky Way hung above me and was unbelievably clear, yet the moon remained on the horizon. To even see the Milky Way in America it must be a new moon, or pitch dark long after the moon has set. Yet here the Milky Way sat in all its glory, rising next to the bright, nearly full moon.
Challenging Perspectives
Alyssa Avila
University of San Francisco
India: Public Health, Gender and Community Action, spring 2018
A village health worker from the Comprehensive Rural Health Project in Jamkhed demonstrates how she provides care and educates pregnant women within her own community.
Cityscapes
Madeline Ninno
Tulane University
Argentina: Transnationalism and Comparative Development in South America, fall 2018
A courtyard in San Telmo, Argentina.
Honorable Mentions
Anna Stubbs
Carleton College
Chile: Public Health, Traditional Medicine, and Community Empowerment, fall 2018
Sage Fox
Oregon State
Ecuador: Comparative Ecology and Conservation, fall 2018
Geoffrey is the manager of Zistinthe Farm and Community Garden in the Ntcheu District of central Malawi. He began his work in food security with the Permaculture Network of Malawi and as a counterpart to Peace Corps volunteers. Over the last two decades, he has been a research assistant and translator for researchers from numerous universities and development projects. Most recently, Geoff worked alongside medical students studying food security and examining the relationship between seasonality and exclusive breastfeeding of infants in rural Malawi. Geoff was born in Blantyre, the “industrial capital” of Malawi, and raised in Gowa Village, the site of this program’s rural homestay. He studied computing and information technology at Skyway Business College in Blantyre and enjoys being a catalyst in the learning and transformation students’ experience studying in Malawi.
Estefi is an urbanist and educator who worked as a Trustees’ Fellow in the International Honors Program Cities in the 21st Century. She is Executive Director of Balance Works to carry out educational programs and cultural exchanges. Estefi has a master’s degree in urbanization and development from the London School of Economics and a BA in policy studies and Latin American studies focused on education from Lafayette College. Her passion for food security merged with her dissertation at LSE, “Cities of Knowledge,” in which one of her main themes of study was the effect of urbanization on agricultural land and the livelihood of farmers in Ecuador. While in Ecuador, she worked as an urbanist specializing in emergency response and planning processes for cities suffering from disasters, particularly strong seismic events. Furthermore, she has developed within the social sphere inter-sectorial projects with international and local NGOs, public institutions, and private enterprise in Latin America. Estefi is an alum of SIT in Chile and Argentina (2009) and of IHP in Canada, India, and Mexico (2008).
Dr. Joseph Lanning is an educator, practitioner, and researcher active in sustainable development and food systems with a regional focus on southern Africa. His research focuses on the mixed livelihoods of rural Malawians as they navigate climatic, environmental, and economic risk and uncertainty in their efforts to achieve food security. He has conducted extended ethnographic research with farmers in Malawi examining agricultural decision-making. His recent collaborative research examined food insecurity and mental health among post-partum women in Malawi. Dr. Lanning is the chair of the Sustainability PhD program and oversees the Global Master’s program in Development Practice and the undergraduate International Honors Program in Food Systems. He has been involved in teaching agroecology in Malawi with the Zisinthe Farm and Community Garden, where he serves as a planning partner.
See Dr. Lanning’s full list of publications
Courses Taught
Foundations of Sustainable Development
Professional Development Seminar
Practitioner Inquiry
Select Publications
Mark, T. E., Latulipe, R. J., Anto-Ocrah, M., Mlongoti, G., Adler, D., & Lanning, J. W. (2021). Seasonality, Food Insecurity, and Clinical Depression in Post-Partum Women in a Rural Malawi Setting. Maternal and Child Health Journal, 25(5), 751–758. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10995-020-03045-8
Lanning, J., S.L. Colby-Bottel, S. Sakash, and Z. Hagos. (2018). Humanizing high-impact practices: Leveraging your learning communities. Global Impact Exchange: A quarterly publication of Diversity Abroad.
Select Presentations
Lanning, J. (2016) Loss aversion, mental accounting, and the confusion of net and gross return among smallholder farmers. [Conference presentation]. Society for Economic Anthropology meeting. Athens, GA, United States
Lanning, J. (2015) Farming as gambling: The role of previous wins and losses in reducing agricultural uncertainty in Malawi. [Conference presentation]. American Anthropology Association meeting. Denver, CO,, United States
Lanning, J. (2014). Some Are on the Top, Some Are on the Bottom: Perceptions of Own-vs.-Community Food Insecurity in Rural Malawi. [Conference presentation]. American Anthropology Association meeting, Washington DC, United States
Research Interests
Economic and agricultural anthropology
Quantitative and qualitative ethnography, behavioral observation, experimental methods
Livelihoods, social networks, poverty, inequality
Land cover chance, climate change, and zoonoses
Sofía has been the program coordinator for the program since 2013. She has a master’s degree in development studies and international cooperation from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, Switzerland. Her undergraduate degree, from the Catholic University of Quito, is in ecology and tourism. Her professional experience includes working in the Ecuadorian government’s Ministry of Tourism and short-term consultancies for local NGO’s regarding community tourism. She has also worked in various aspects of alternative education for both children and young adults in Ecuador and Costa Rica, including workshops on peace and nonviolence and studies on indigenous community Issues and wildlife rehabilitation.
he/him/his
Fabian studied biology and anthropology at the University of California at Santa Cruz, where he completed his MA. He was communication and information coordinator for the Charles Darwin Research Station on the Galápagos Islands, executive director of and researcher for the Cofán Ethnographic Museum in the Cuyabeno Nature Reserve, and advisor to the president of Ecuador on environmental and indigenous affairs. He has extensive experience as a naturalist guide and cultural interpreter, leading groups in archaeology, indigenous cosmologies, and natural history. He is also associated with the Instituto Cientifico de Culturas Indigenas and the Universidad Intercultural Amawtay Wasi. He co-directed the SIT Ecuador: Development, Politics, and Languages program from 1999 to 2013 and is now sole director of the program.
Courses Taught
Undergraduate Courses
Languages in Contact: Spanish, Quichua, and Other Languages in Ecuador
Paradigms of Development and Political Discourse in Ecuador
Research Methods and Ethics
Independent Study Project