Tulane University

Story by Erika Pettersen, Stone Center graduate student and Publicity Assistant

Each year, the Stone Center for Latin American Studies invites Tulane University graduate students engaged in the study of Latin America or the Caribbean to apply for funding to conduct fieldwork pertaining to their research outside of the United States. In Spring 2019, a total of $50,000 was awarded to 27 graduate students from 11 departments, representing the School of Liberal Arts, the School of Science and Engineering, and the School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. Funding was provided through a grant from the Tinker Foundation’s Field Research Grant program as well as through support from the Stone Center for Latin American Studies. Student awardees, the majority of whom had little to no prior field research experience, used this opportunity to explore the feasibility of a particular project and to gain experience in conducting preliminary hands-on field research abroad.

On Saturday, October 19th, the Stone Center held a full-day symposium where grantees reported on the projects they undertook over the course of this past summer. The event was organized into five panel sessions, wherein students gave ten-minute presentations and had the opportunity to ask each other questions about their work. Each panel included students from multiple departments, creating a unique forum for interdisciplinary exchange. In this way, the symposium served not only as a reporting requirement and measure of accountability for awardees, but also as a special peer-learning experience. Students gained insights into each other’s methods and processes as well as challenges and successes in the field.

You can find the full schedule of presentations made during the 2019 Stone Center Graduate Student Summer Field Research Symposium below:

• Ryan Hechler (Anthropology): “The Proyecto Arqueológico Cochasquí-Mojanda Summer 2019 Study”
• Diego Matadamas Gomora (Anthropology): “Postclassic Settlement at Tlalancaleca, Puebla: A Perspective from Household Archaeology”
• Alexander Jurado (Anthropology): “Residential Excavations at Tlalancaleca, Puebla”
• Catherine Sckerl (CCC): “‘Informal’ Settlements in Oaxaca de Juárez, MX”
• Erika Pettersen (LAST): “Reconsidering Indigenous Cultural Preservation in Oaxaca, Mexico: A Closer Look at Community Museums”
• Rubén Morales Forte (LAST): “Applying technology to foster Pre-Colombian awareness in Guatemala, a case study with Community Engagement at Dolores, Petén”

• Sarah Mellman (Anthropology): “An Ethnography of the Logging Industry and Indigenous Land in the Eastern Amazon”
• Fabiola Rodríguez Vásquez (EEB): “The Yoro Model: Conservation and research in a coffee producing region in Honduras”
• Jessica Glass (LAST): “Favela Commodification: Potential Site Analysis in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil”
• Valentina Martínez Pabon (Economics): “Inequality and Poverty in Argentina after a change in the political regime”
• Chasitie Brown (Art History): “Re-Defining Afro-Cuban Identity: Arnaldo Rodriguez Larrianga Los Negros Brujos (1998)”
• Christopher Givens (Theater & Dance): “Modes of Engagement in Chile’s Performance Communities”

• Jennifer Miller Scarnato (CCC): “Oral Histories of the Family Members of Missing Migrants in Central America”
• Bethany Beachum (LAST): “Navigating Donors and the State: Power Dynamics in Guatemalan Civil Society”
• Andres Sandoval (Political Science): “End the Resource Curse: Transparency Initiatives in Peru”
• Bryana Mattes (LAST): “Class, Corruption, and Mobilization: How Corruption Affects Civic Mobilization and Splinters Socioeconomic Groups in Cali, Colombia”
• Diane Ghogomu (LAST): “A Pleasure-Based Embodiment Training as a Systematic Tool for Changemaking”

• Kaushik Narasimhan (EEB): “To what degree does rare genotype survival advantage shape rainforest tree community dynamics?”
• Khrystyne Tschinkel (Anthropology): “Exploring Disease Origins and the Biological Impact of European Contact with the New World from the First * Uncovered Early Colonial Cemetery in Peru”
• Annie Preaux (SPHTM): “Proyecto Mujer al Centro: Understanding Providers’ Perspectives on Obstetric Violence in the Dominican Republic”
• Margaret Buehler (Anthropology): “Evaluating Mechanisms promoting multimale-multifemale social organization in wild Cebus capucinus”
• Alejandra Marks (Anthropology): “Invisible men: a study about male attitudes towards abortion in Cuba”

• Bárbara Xavier França (Spanish & Portuguese): “Reading the exile in Bolano’s epistolary archive”
• Raúl Alencar (History): “Intimacy between Oceans: Brittany and the South Pacific in the Atlantic System (1695-1730)”
• Ruben Luciano Jr. (History): “Queering the Trujillato: A Reeaxamination of Masculinities and Hypermasculinities in the Dominican Republic from 1930-1961”
• Michael Gutiérrez (History): “Empire of Stone: Limestone and U.S. Colonialism in Cuba, 1899-1902”
• Andrés Vargas Valdés (History): “The Inquisition in Cartagena During the Second Half of XVII Century”