Yucatan IU Service Learning. Summer
“Adventure, Ruins, Ecology”
Service Learning, Heritage & Community Tourism in Yucatan
LTAM-L 426 (5 week course, 6 credits)
Satisfies International Experience Requirement For International Studies Majors
2015 Summer Session (May 13 to June 17)
Dr. Quetzil Castañeda
CLACS—Latin American and Caribbean Studies, IUB 1125 East Atwater Ave
Office Phone: 812 855 9097 Email qcastane@indiana.edu
Course Catalog Description
This course combines traditional classroom learning, community based service learning, and on-site international field experience in the Maya world of Yucatán. Specifically, this field study abroad course provides students with direct experiential training in and academic knowledge of international tourism development and the unique problems of creating sustainable community oriented tourism. The course consists of one and half weeks pre-travel seminar conducted on-campus followed by three and half weeks in the Yucatán Peninsula, México. The primary on-site location is the Indigenous Maya community of Pisté located 3 kms. from the New Seven Wonder and UNESCO World Heritage site of Chichén Itzá. Pisté is a town that provides the majority of tourism services to Chichén. Student work in teams and are paired up with community partners in order to create strategies and projects for increased tourism development that directly benefits local peoples and communities. There will be required orientation meetings before the course starts; initial meeting is held in early March and a follow up in the second week of April.
This 6 credit course that can count for different departmental and major course requirements, including the International Experience Requirement ” of the International Studies department. Please check with your advisor. The course fees includes tuition, field trips, lodging, meals, and all program expenses excluding personal expenses and individual consumables. Students reside in the Posada Olalde Links to an external site. which is a family run posada similar to a pension or hostel. There are field trips to Playa del Carmen, Merida, Chichén Itzá, museums, and cenotes in order to understand and analyze different types of tourism and tourism destinations.
Requirements: Students with any major or minor are eligible but they must have (1) completed freshman year of university or college; (2) a GPA of 2.4 or higher; (3) at least one year of college Spanish or equivalent placement or native/heritage speaker fluency.
Application & Authorization: Students must submit a program application and be formally accepted before being authorized to enroll. Students must be in good academic standing and adhere to IU’s official study abroad policies in addition to the specific course policies for good conduct and behavior. These are discussed in class and presented for each student to sign a release forms for participation. IU Overseas Application Form. Links to an external site.
Course Outcome and General Take-Aways:
The course integrates service learning objectives and participatory action research within an applied anthropology framework. This approach teaches students how to value and prioritize community perspectives, cultural understandings, and local histories in creating successful economic development, tourism promotion, public policy and resource management. Students learn how to create real collaborations with communities in the design and implementation of solutions to socioeconomic problems that communities face in contexts of globalization and neoliberalism. The goal of this course is to provide students with the tools and experience in community tourism development that allows students to design, develop, manage, and promote tourism in ways that have greater benefits for local communities.
Specifically, the classroom component provides students with the academic foundations of a) tourism studies and tourism development, including the roles of heritage, culture, community, and ecology in the development of mass and alternative tourisms, b) the culture and history of Yucatán, with special focus on the history of regional tourism, c) the politics and social contexts of NGO and communitarian organizations in México, and d) the methods and goals of participatory and community action research, especially as these relate to service learning and to applied social science research.
Course Concept and Design
On site in the Maya community of Pisté, students continue classroom learning and conduct their service learning. Based on language skills, technical knowledge, and interests, students are placed in teams that are then paired with community partners. Partners include community organizations, cooperatives, civil associations, and government agencies that are involved in heritage and tourism. Students do a combination of direct, project, or participatory action service learning that is defined according to the specific community partners, their changing needs, and the different individual skills and motivations of the student groups in each field season.
Students conduct an analysis of the cultural and ecological heritage resources in which community partners are involved and that are available in this micro tourism destination. Students define service learning projects based on direct interaction and knowledge exchange with partners and in relation to their own tourism resource assessments. By learning directly from the community partners about their understandings, perspectives, and expressed needs, students collaborate with partners to design and implement projects that foment and develop tourism in ways that have direct benefit for the community and for the partner organizations.
Students can contribute to community in several different ways. Students collaborate with community partners in the areas of development, marketing, promotion, and management of tourism resources and destinations. The projects can range widely in content, type, scope and scale according to the skills, knowledge and interests students bring to the course. Students are encouraged to develop projects that can include activities or elements such as photographic documentation of resources, creation of web pages, educational or motivational workshops that emphasize the value of heritage and identity, advertising strategies, English language workshops directed toward specific types of tourism workers or tourism encounters, training in interpersonal interaction with tourists, promotion of tourism destinations or services on Trip Advisor and related travel sites, participatory training to understand tourist motivations and desires. This list is partial: Student creativity and imagination grounded in real understanding of local needs and contexts are the limits for the kinds of projects students can design and implement. In other words, students are provided the opportunity to be creative in their collaboration with community members to figure out new solutions to community problems of tourism development, management and promotion.
- In addition to the practical work students conduct, students are required to continually write reflections on their service learning. Assignments include essays derived from traditional classroom learning and reflective essays in which practice based analysis and concepts are explored as the means to assess student achievements.
- The program includes academic field trips to tourism destinations based in cultural heritage, ecological attractions, and beach recreation, including the Maya Riviera, Playa del Carmen, Chichén Itzá, Tulum, Mérida, and Cenote Yokdzonot. These field trips offer students the opportunity to meet with and learn directly from representatives of the tourism industry, government, private sector, and community organizations about the diverse problems and practices of international tourism development.
- This course is ideal for persons who are interested or majoring in: international studies, public policy, photography, social media, advertising and marketing, international business, anthropology, sustainable community development, heritage, and tourism as a field of study and career path.
Tuition, Program Activity Fee, & Non-Refundable Deposit
Tuition and program activities fees are combined for a total of $2140. The Fee includes: 6 credits Tuition; all program-based lodging and meals in Mexico; local transportation for group travel and for individuals when directly related to course assignments; field trips; entrance fees; group program activities.
The fee excludes: Round trip international airfare to Cancun from home city; personal items, including medicine, hygiene, beauty, and gifts for individual use; individually purchased non-program food, service, lodging, or consumables.
The non-refundable deposit of $500 is required and must be paid in advance by February 28 to guarantee the student’s place on the enrollment roster. Late Enrollment is available if positions on roster have not been guaranteed
Contact Hours and Credit Hours
Classroom 64 hours 28 hours pre-travel, 36 hours, minimum, on-site
Service Learning 38 hours minimum direct & project based service learning; field trips
Course Total 6 credits hours
This course satisfies the International Studies International Experience Requirement based on an exception that is to be made for International Studies students whose academic interests match the learning objectives of this program. International Studies will make these exceptions on ad-hoc basis and after consultation with the INTL chair and the INTL DUS and Academic Advisor.
Grading and Assignments
Seminar grade has three components: first, engagement with and participation in the seminar sessions; second, formal presentations of assigned readings, including preparation of handouts of each reading; third an essay based on questions raised in seminar readings and discussions. At the beginning of the course, all readings on the syllabus are assigned to students for the reading presentation and handout assignment. Specific instructions provided separately. The exact number of readings for which each student is responsible varies according to enrollment.
The on-site service learning component of the course consists of several assignments. Fieldnotes and Reflective essays based on (1) field trips and (2) service learning project with community partners. (3) An analysis of community tourism comprised of a written qualitative assessment based on participatory action research with the community partner. (4) The community service project consisting of the proposal and design, evaluated in relation to the community tourism analysis, vision and scope of tourism development, and viability of successful completion. (5) The implementation of the community service project including any products, documentation, materials and outcomes. (6) The project report, i.e., an analytical essay consisting of reflection and assessment of the student service learning project, and a presentation to the community partners in the student conference during final week of course. All of these assignments — including other materials such as schedule of fieldwork questions; interview answers, analyses of information gathered, participatory research proposal and project design, photos, fieldnotes, audio and video recordings — are submitted together to comprise the Service Learning Project Portfolio. This presentation is also to be revised for use in the IU CITL Project Engage forum during the following spring.
On-site Fieldnotes and Reflections. Students are asked to write a type of diary called field notes. Student take handwritten fieldnotes in the course of their project and are required to transfer these to electronic word files. This re-writing of the handwritten notes also includes elaboration with additional information that was recorded in memory, as well as synthetic and analytical commentaries. These are the basis of short reflection essays. Reflections are required for each field trip and for the service learning projects conducted with community partners. These assignments are described separately in detail.
Seminar (pre-travel & on-site) 40%
Seminar Participation 20%
Seminar Reading Presentations & Handouts 10%
Seminar Essay 10%
Service Learning Project & Portfolio 60%
Field Trip Reflections 10%
Project Fieldnotes & Reflections 10%
Community Tourism Analysis 10%
Project Proposal and Design 10%
Project Implementation & Products 10%
Project Report & Presentation 10%
Seminar Structure and Design
This course is an intensive undergraduate level international service learning program. Students are expected to be fully committed and motivated to participate. The classroom sessions on campus are long, ranging from 3 to 4 hours and comprised of the following component units. The seminars consists of two seminar sessions and one interactive components as discussed below
Component #1. Seminar Session
Seminar Session on a specific topic geared toward academic learning outcomes. This most directly fits the model of the traditional classroom setting. It is comprised of both professor’s presentations of course materials in a seminar vs lecture style presentation and student presentations on readings based on their handouts.
Component #2. Language and Culture
Language and Culture sessions provide students the opportunity to learn more about the culture, communities, and language issues that are involved in the overseas on-site period of the course. The content varies but the point of these 20-30 minute sessions is to accustom students to the idea that once there we will always thinking, speaking and communicating in Spanish about issues that range from everyday routine (eating, sleeping), life in the community, and what we will be doing during field trips in Yucatán.
Component #3 Film Screening and Discussion
Viewing films in class follow the traditional model of classroom learning. We seek to innovate this learning method by integrating in-depth discussion sections and in-class writing time to reflect on the issues raised by the films that we view in class.
Seminar Participation
As way to help students prepare themselves for increasing levels of intellectual challenge, discipline and achievement, the seminar are conducted “graduate style.” This of course also contributes to our abilities to participate in such a long classroom session. The graduate style of seminar means that each student is going to be responsible for presenting one of the assigned readings for each seminar session. Students are required to prepare a handout for each reading and to do a 15 minute presentation on the reading in the seminar. There are extensive guidelines on how to prepare the handout and to perform the presentation. See assignment description following Schedule of Readings and Activities. Readings
Required to Purchase: Readings & Software
The required readings are mostly all only chapters from journals or are derived from textbooks. The vast majority of assigned readings are therefore available in pdf format on Oncourse/Canvas. There are a few highly recommended textbook purchases that should be brought with the student to the international field site:
- Morgan, Focus Groups as Qualitative Research Links to an external site..
- 501 Spanish Verbs Links to an external site.
- ACDSee image management program Links to an external site., current or earlier versions
Course Objectives
Academic Goals
- Learn foundation of knowledge of tourism studies as an academic field of study
- Learn basic socio economic and cultural histories of Yucatán, México, with special attention to Maya peoples and regional tourism development
- Identify and analyze different types of tourism processes, which are defined in this class in relation to the spatial organization and structuring of consumption
- Identify and analyze how communities are integrated within and effected by different types of tourism processes and forms of development.
- Identify and analyze sociopolitical processes that — in contexts of Mexican and Latin American societies — shape the nature, characteristics and types of community based in criteria of solidarity, organizational forms, institutional power.
Service Learning Goals
- Gain practical understanding, skills and experience in the design and implementation strategies of community-oriented tourism development
- Learn the basic methodologies of community and participatory action research, specifically:
- Gain practical understanding of the relationship and differences between types of applied, community, and participatory research
- Gain hands-on experience in the practice of community action/participatory research with
- Learn how to identify, understand and pragmatically analyze the interface between civil society (communities) and nongovernmental organizations in contexts of Mexican and Latin American politics and society by
- Gaining hands-on experience in collaboration with community organizations and different social sectors involved in tourism
- Gaining direct hands-on understanding of the sociopolitical structuring and formation of community within contexts of Mexican and Yucatec society
- Gaining experiential learning of how NGOs and civil associations work in the public (“third”) space of civil society between private and government spheres
Learning Outcomes
Students gain practical experience, know-how, and skills in working with community partners in non-American contexts of development in different areas of tourism development, such as heritage management, tourism marketing and analysis, use of internet & social media for community benefit, identity and cultural heritage, strategic planning.
Student learn to prioritize the understandings, perspectives, and needs of communities over and above pre-packaged models of community organizing, tourism, and business that are typically imposed upon non-US and non-European societies by transnational corporations, and international governmental organizations.
Course Policies
- Attendance Policy: Students are required to attend all on-campus seminars. Failure to attend one of these sessions incurs a one letter grade drop in the final grade per session regardless of the reason; including “good” reasons. Failure to participate in course activities once on-site in Yucatán can be excused without penalizing final grade due only to confirmed personal illness or emergency. If a student suffers a protracted or severe illness that prevents participation in any course or on-site program activity for two days or more, the student should consider early withdrawal.
- IU Travel & Study Abroad Policies: Specific guidelines and expectations for the overseas component of the course are discussed in detail in multiple class sessions prior to our departure. Students with additional questions or concerns should ask the Instructor at the start of the course. Read these IU Overseas Study Abroad Policies policies here. Links to an external site.
- Release Forms and Agreement of Good Conduct Policies: Students are required to sign agreements in which students commit to good conduct, conditions of participation, responsibility, and release of liability. Failure to sign these or failure to abide by established guidelines results in Early Termination of the student from the program.
- Assignment Policy: All work is due at the beginning of class on the specified due date. All assignments are submitted via Oncourse and in hard copy printed and submitted in class. Normally, hand-written assignments (other than the journal/fieldnotes completed in Jamaica) are not be accepted. Late assignments are penalized for each day past due.
- Computer Policy: You are responsible for your computer and for all work conducted on computer. It is your responsibility to maintain backup copies of all work. Grades are based on work that is completed and correctly turned in; thus assignments that are not turned in because files were lost, accidentally erased, corrupted, or because of computer hard drive failures or stolen computers are graded with a zero.
- Fieldnotes and Reflections: Students complete field-note entries and reflections throughout the course. Observations and examples from the field-note entries you complete should be carefully integrated into your presentations and final paper.
- No Incomplete Policy: Incompletes are Not Available under any circumstances what so ever, including medical or personal emergency. If you are unable to complete a major portion of assignments you will receive a grade based on what is completed and submitted according to instructions provided in syllabus and assignment.
- Withdrawal, Early Termination: The course activities fee is 100% non-refundable after April 30. Early Termination, Cancellation or Withdrawing from the course entails a loss of the full amount of the program cost. Any expenses, including damages, fees, transportation, communication, lodging, and meals, that are incurred on-site in order to return to the USA by Early Termination, Cancellation, or student Withdrawing are entirely the responsibility of the student. The student is obliged to arrange and pay for his or her expenses directly.
Process & Structure: Direct, Project & Modified Service Learning
This course is designed to accommodate service learning with different types of community partners, some of which are highly or formally organized groups — such as unions, cultural centers, and cooperatives — while others are loose associations of community members that share a particular work or economic identity. Direct service learning and even project based service learning are therefore not always possible if the partner does not have any formal organization or institutional and geographic location. Our course structure and design therefore uses a modified form of service learning that combines direct, project based, and community action research.
Students conduct participatory action research with community partners in the field of community tourism development. Students are assigned to work with community partners according to identifiable student interests, backgrounds, educational motivations, and language skills. Students are grouped in teams of two or three based on complementary strengths in order to conduct their projects.
Student Service Learning Projects consist of a five step process.
- Knowledge Foundation. Students gain the necessary knowledge foundation of the specific partner and their place in the tourism economy. This knowledge is gained directly through experiential learning from and interaction with participating members of the organization and is supplemented through the Reflections Workshops conducted in the on-site seminars in which students discuss their knowledge and experiences of working with community partners. Fieldnotes and Reflections are the primary learning assessment tools. Student creation of their knowledge is ongoing process.
- Tourism Analysis and Destination Assessment—TADA. Students conduct a two-tiered TADA of the tourism attraction(s) associated with or operated by specific community partners. First tier is an analysis of the destination from the perspective of the tourist Second tier is the conduct of focus group and participant observation methodologies to learn, document, and analyze the partner perspectives and understandings of their needs.
- Project Design. Students design a service learning project that negotiates the two assessment of needs as perceived by both the community partner and the student as tourist-perspective. Seminar provides the intellectual and academic framework for students to write up a project design that builds directly on knowledge foundations and destination assessments. Projects require collaboration, participation, and dialogue to be built into the project dynamic; student’s individual and team skills, abilities, motivations and capabilities to be prioritized; a vision of immediate and short term phases of project development; and completion in the given calendar for that season of all work associated with the project for that phase of work. Projects must be approved.
- Conduct Project. Students work in their teams to conduct and complete the service learning project with the community partner. Variable activities and methodologies are put into play with guidance from teaching staff. Reflections workshop seminars are used to report on student and team success, achievements, frustrations, and self-assessment.
- Project Report: Evaluation and Presentation. The student conference allows teams to report to other teams and to their partner representatives; includes submission of portfolio. Students are asked to participate in a IU-CITL forum the following spring semester to showcase Project Engage service learning to the IU community.
Cultural Realities, Parameters, and Key Elements in the Strategic Design of Service Learning Projects
- Students will discover that the top priority of all community organizations and individuals, whether or not they are involved in tourism, is to improve their proficiency in English conversation. Student projects should include some dimension of providing English instruction to organizations and groups. This cannot, however, take the form of an ESL course.
- Rather students should integrate understanding of this need in their project design and should in some way create procedures for satisfying this need within the methodologies of the service learning project that the student teams design for their partners. This can be accomplished by providing community partners essential vocabulary, translations (e.g., of menus or information), scripted dialogue for situated interactions, and stock language for self-description for use in interactions with tourists.
- Students must grasp that persons everywhere have their “head in the sand” that is, we too often are too immersed in the immediacy of our own lives to establish a more distanced, detached, or “objective” perspective. In other words, community partners are engrossed in their immediate life situations, cultural worlds, and socioeconomic contexts—just as we are in our own lives!!! We do not have a “better,” more “correct,” “objective,” or realistic understanding of their situation. We just have a different perspective that we seek to add to their understandings. The point is to create interactive, dialogical, two-way learning and intercultural exchange.
- As US-American educational tourists we can offer these organizations and individuals insights from our understandings of the motivations, desires, expectations, and preferences of tourists. Service Learning Projects can be strategically built on or integrate this criteria through such methods as workshops for example, that help the community partners understand US-culture, tourism culture, US views of cultural heritage, ecological heritage, and consumerism.
- Students will discover that although globalization, technology and digital networking links us all in a virtual community, this community is nonetheless and perhaps all the more hierarchical, unequal, politically charged and askew. While internet and smart phone technologies are used by many, there is unequal use, access and distribution of these. Most community partners do not have anywhere near the extensive implicit knowledge and user-experience that you have of the internet, computers, and digital information. This fact can and should be integrated into your service learning projects.
- Ways in which this can be integrated into projects can include workshops teaching community partners how to use and better exploit the internet, apps, and social media. They can bring these elements directly to the forefront with specific strategies, methods and procedures for using apps, social media, and the internet generally.
- Community partners want to have increasingly better understandings of the world. Specifically, what it is that can make Pisté a more attractive tourism destination and one that is better equipped to handle and respond to the demands of international, primarily US tourism. Thus, projects could and should integrate the identification of potential tourism resources and creative or inspired visions of how these can be developed with sustainable benefit to local communities as well as grounded in understanding of local contexts.
Parameters and Forms of Service Learning Projects
Students need to take the following points into consideration as general conceptual and design parameters for the Service Learning Projects that they create in their team in relation to their community partner.
- The top priority of all community organizations and most persons involved in tourism is to improve their English language proficiency in speaking and listening. Student projects should include some dimension of providing English instruction to organizations and groups. This however cannot take the form of an ESL course; rather students should integrate understanding of this need in their project design. This can be achieved by creating a method that provides community partners essential vocabulary, translations, scripted dialogue for situated interactions, and language for self-description to be used in hosting tourists.
- Community partners and individuals, like persons anywhere in the world of any nationality, culture, and social group, are engrossed in their immediate life situations and cultural worlds. They know their world from the inside. But often we do not often take the time to create more external perspectives on our life, the situations we are in, and the problems that we confront. Organizations and individuals can greatly benefit from this type of external, non-local perspective. In general you will neither have enough experience in life generally nor have enough knowledge specifically about local histories and situations to provide any substantive ideas about long-standing problems. Thus, you are not asked nor expected to be able to solve the real life problems of a communities who has radically different cultures, languages, and histories than you.
- Nonetheless, there are two areas in which students have some general knowledge and life experience that can inform the design, development and implementation of projects: Students generally are able to offer external and beneficial knowledge with regard to their US-based understanding of the motivations, desires, expectations, and preferences of international tourists. Projects can therefore also be designed in relation to this expertise that you have. This can be integrated into your projects by developing some type of workshop or training session regarding
- tourist needs and desires.
- What makes a tourist destination attractive for particular kinds of tourists.
- The relationship between identity, culture and heritage and how this triad is important to the attractiveness of destinations.
- Social media and internet, smart phone, and tablet technologies as crucial means by which to actively promote and advertise the tourism attractions and destinations associated with the community and partners.
Program Locations: (see on Google maps) Links to an external site.
Pisté (locate on google maps) Links to an external site.
The on-site location of the course is the Maya community of Pisté, Yucatán, México Links to an external site.. Pisté is a small yet somewhat "cosmopolitan" town of approximately 5,000 persons that forms the central socioeconomic and service center of the tourism economy of the nearby archaeological ruins and tourism destination of Chichén Itzá. Links to an external site. There are more than a half dozen smaller towns and villages – including Yaxuna, Xocenpich, Xkalacoop, Yokdzonot, Popolá – that form the socioeconomic and political periphery of Pisté-Chichén Links to an external site.. These villages are often much more traditional with greater incidence of monolingual Maya speakers, agricultural production and underdeveloped urban infrastructure.
Community Institute Transcultural Exchange (CITE) is an independent private organization located in Pisté Links to an external site., near the Posada Olalde, dedicated to transcultural exchange and community benefits. The CITE research and living facilities are used as the course headquarters for seminars, research, meetings with partners, social activities, library resources, communications center and staff lodging. The CITE mission is Links to an external site.:
- To foment reciprocal educational processes and mutually productive interaction between diverse communities of researchers, students, social groups, and cultures that meet in transcultural encounters; and
- To increase the prosperity, well-being, achievement, tranquility, self-determination, and positive valorization of cultural communities that historically have been marginalized
The CITE facility in Pisté includes seminar rooms, library, internet service, study rooms, garden; it thus provides space for social gatherings, indoor and outdoor activity areas for research and seminars, and professional meeting areas with community partners.
Lodging and Food in Pisté
Once onsite in Pisté students will be sleeping in shared rooms in the Posada Olalde Links to an external site. which is a family run posada (similar to European pension) owned by Victor Olalde, his mother Monica and sister Lourdes. All three meals will be arranged with local cooks. The main meal of the day is lunch served starting between 1:30 and 2:30. Vegetarians can be accommodated but not typically in the same manner to which one is accustomed in the USA. Yucatecan cuisine relies heavily on pork, chicken, tortillas, beans, and … coca cola. There will be a thorough introduction to all issues related to food, lodging, and living in Pisté during the pre-departure seminars.
Playa del Carmen (locate on google maps) Links to an external site.
Lodging will be arranged in shared rooms in a family run posada or hostel in Playa del Carmen. We will be eating in off-tourist zones in order to save our budget as well as to experience a different México. The course includes two nights and 2.5 days — depending upon our arrival times in Cancun airport. Playa del Carmen is the Crown Jewel of the Maya Riviera Links to an external site.. It has extensive beautiful beaches that are typically packed from July to August; there is a short off-season in May, June, October. Our field trip in Playa is 80% course and research focused; we seek to understand tourism activities, motivations and pleasures from an analytical perspective of tourism destinations and development.
Partner Organizations
Cenote de Yokdzonot Links to an external site. Cooperativa Zaaz Koolen Haá Links to an external site.
Contact: Myrna Mendez Mex
Cooperative of 24 persons who over 10 years have developed an “eco-tourism adventure” destination. Based on government funding through the federal CDI, this group developed the cenote for swimming, zipline and lunches. Yokdzonot is 15 mins west of Pisté on the main highway and requires second class bus service.
Centro Cultural de Yaxuna Links to an external site.
Contact: Grace Bascope
This organization has been around for approximately 25 years. It derives from the encounter of US archaeologists and the community of Yaxuna in which different visions of sustainable community tourism projects were worked on. The cultural center is associated with the community Cenote and includes a small community museum. 22 mins south of Pisté and requires taxi or shuttle service. Overnight lodging will be arranged for a few nights for the student team working with this partner.
Sindicato de los Custodios del INAH, Section CRY
Contact: Gaspar Burgos
The INAH is the National Institute of Anthropology and History. It is the federal agency charged with educational and research mission but also the conservation and protection of cultural patrimony or heritage. This is the union of heritage workers – custodios – that protect archaeological sites from tourists and others. This organization is especially interested in developing better relationships with the community in order to first foment a stronger sense of identity and responsibility of the community to archaeological heritage and second specifically instill a greater sense of responsibility and value of heritage on the part of the custodios themselves as a group.
County Government of Pisté
Contact: Roamy Mex, Regidor of Tinum County, Tourism Director
The County Government coordinates tourism related activities, events, businesses, and work sectors. These socioeconomic groups are most often not formally organized, except in the form of labor or trade unions, which thereby excludes the possibility of direct service learning. Students therefore do project based service learning in the form of participatory action research. The specific sectorial groups with whom students conduct action research service learning are: (a) owners of non-charter based eateries, including loncherias, small restaurants, food stalls, and pizzerias; (b) owners of posadas and small family run hotels; (c) taxi drivers; (d) tour guides; (e) retail handicraft store owners and artisans/artists.
Field Trips: The exact field trip locations, durations, activities, accommodations, and meals are dependent upon enrollment and available budget. The program director reserves the right to change activities, field trips and planning as dictated by various contingency factors.
Field Trips (click on headers — links)
The on-site component of the course consists of work conducted in the community of Pisté and field trips to a variety of different types of tourism destinations. The field trips are crucial for students to gain a direct experiential understanding of different types of tourism, the kinds of tourists that consume these experiences, the structures of socioeconomic and political power that regulate and create these destinations, and the ways in which communities are integrated into tourism as participants or labor and thus the effects that these different types of tourism processes have on communities. Throughout our field trips we ask who are the Maya and what do they have to do with tourism — in terms of their participation in the making of tourism, as symbols for marketing and consumerism, and recipients of benefits. Students write reflective essays on determined topics at each location which are visited for the educational purposes defined in this course syllabus.
Playa del Carmen Links to an external site. — Maya Riviera Tourism Cultures Links to an external site.
On arrival in Cancun airport the group is immediately transported to Playa del Carmen for two nights. Our time in Playa is 80% course related based in participant observation in various of the tourism activities of this location, which includes a virtually non-stop night life to suit a variety of nationalities and life-style choices, beach culture, and endless shopping/eating consumerism. Every day is punctuated with structured activities and reflection essays on topics such as: what is international tourism, beach culture, the relationship of Maya peoples and communities to mass tourism, consumerism and heritage, tourism experiences. There will be a guest presentation by someone from the tourism industry or from the town government. Half day on Sunday is free – open recreational time.
Chichén Itzá: Links to an external site.— 7 Wonder of the World Links to an external site.and UNESCO World Heritage Site Links to an external site.
The archaeological site of Chichén Itzá is major tourism destination receiving between 1.6 and 2.2 million tourists a year. Our visit to Chichén includes a tour of the site as a heritage tourism destination in which the politics of heritage, the contemporary economic struggles and issues of ownership of cultural property are explored. There will be opportunity to visit Chichén on more than one occasion; a second trip is devoted to a presentation by the authorities that administer and regulate both tourism and heritage at Chichén. This UNESCO World Heritage Links to an external site. site is located three kilometer walking distance from Pisté.
Mérida, la Ciudad Blanca and Colonial Heritage Tourism Links to an external site.
There is one day trip to Mérida, which is the colonial heritage destination of the Yucatán peninsula. The city of Mérida has created a tourism strategy of having tourism activities every single night of the week 365 days of the year. Our trip is scheduled for either a Thursday night to experience the traditional Yucatec folklore and dance presentation or on Sunday to experience the full day party in the park of Mérida en Domingo in which a 6 block area downtown is converted to street dancers, music, and celebration.
Eco-Tourism Adventures — visit to cenotes at Yokdzonot, Dzitas and Yaxuna Links to an external site.
Using Pisté as the home base we have day trips to ecotourism developments of nearby cenotes where various zip line, swimming, canoe, and diving recreation can be experienced. Unlike other destinations these are purely local community development projects. One or more students can be placed with these organizations.
Short Schedule of Seminar Topics and Activities
Pre-Course Orientation Meetings
Held in first or 2nd week of March and mid-April. 1-2 hours
Orientation covers travel logistics, issues of safety, IU release forms, Overseas Study course credits, and general course design. Focus: Scheduling of student travel, purchase of flights, insurance, clothing, equipment, supplies, as well as other questions raised by participants.
Week One. On Campus, Pre-Travel
Seminar /Day 1 4 hrs
Session One: Course Introduction, Travel Logistics, Course Mechanics, IU Policies
Session Two: Pisté-Chichén Community Tourism Action Research Project
Language & Culture Session: Situated Dialogues & Intro to Maya Culture in Spanish
Seminar/Day 2. 4 hrs
Session One: What is Tourism? Who is a Tourist?
Session Two: Tourist Motivations, Experiences & Meanings
Film Session: Screening, Discussion, In-Class Writing: Screening and Discussion “Incidents of Travel in Chichén Itzá” by Himpele & Castaneda
Seminar/Day 3 4 hrs
Session One: Social and Culture History of Yucatán: Who are the Maya and Maya Culture?
Session Two: Tourism Online I: Marketing, Blogs, Maps, Couch Surfing, Trip Advisor
Film Session In-Class, Team Assignment: Search, Find, View, Assess Tourism Films on YouTube — groups assigned to Chichén, Maya Riviera, Cancun, Merida, Cozumel, Tulum
Week Two. On Campus, Pre-Travel
Seminar/Day 4 4 hrs
Session One: Tourism Regions: Destinations, Development, and Consumption
Session Two: Community Action Research Methodologies, part 1.
Language & Culture Session: In-Class Spanish dialogues and situated speech interactions
Seminar/Day 5 4 hrs
Session One: NGOs and INGOs: Community Organizations in Latin American Contexts
Session Two: Alternative Tourisms & Ethics, Part I: Heritage, Cultural, Eco-, Community
Film Session: Screening, Discussion, In-Class Writing: TBA
Seminar/Day 6 4 hrs
Session One: Tourism in Yucatán: Cancun, Maya Riviera, and Archaeological Heritage
Session Two: Community Action Research Methodologies, part 2.
Language & Culture Session: In-Class Practice Focus Group interviewing in Spanish
Seminar/Day 7 4 hrs
Session One: Alternative Tourisms, Part II: Modern,
Session Two: Tourism Online II: Where is Yucatán?
Language & Culture Session: Pre-Travel Questions & Issues conducted in Spanish
Week Two Weekend: Travel to Yucatán
Friday: Travel to Cancun, Shuttle to Playa del Carmen. Seminar 8 Orientation
Saturday: Playa del Carmen Field Trip. Seminar, Guest Presentation, Field work
Sunday: Free Day, option for informal Tulum trip, and Travel to Pisté – Chichén
Week Three. On-Site, Pisté – Chichén Itzá
Monday Seminar: Orientation to Pisté Reflections on Playa del Carmen Tourism.
Tuesday Trip to Yokdzonot Zaaz Haa Cenote (Service Hours)
Wednesday Trip to Yaxuna Cultural Center and Cenote (Service Hours)
Thursday: Seminar Presentations by governmental authorities of Chichén Itzá
Friday Trip to Chichén Itzá, archaeological site. Turn Project Proposals
Sat & Sun: Free/No scheduled program activities. Optional small group travel to Merida for weekly Sunday full-day festival, Merida en Domingo.
Week Four. On-Site, Pisté – Chichén Itzá
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
4 hours per day direct service learning with community partner and working with teammates on service learning project to develop project outcomes for partner.
Tuesday & Friday: Seminar: Reflections on Service Learning and project activities
Thursday Merida Trip for Santa Lucia Park Traditional Music & Dance (7pm start)
Sat & Sun: Free/No scheduled program activities. Optional small group travel to Merida for weekly Sunday full-day festival, Merida en Domingo.
Week Five. On-Site, Pisté – Chichén Itzá
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday
4 hours per day direct service learning with community partner or working with teammates on service learning project.
Monday Seminar devoted to reflections and discussion of project activities
Thursday Student Conference with Community Partners. Project Teams do presentations of Project Results. Use of PowerPoints, Posters, Slideshows
Friday Seminar, final class session, debriefing, reflections, assessment
Friday Clausura: Group Social to finalize field study course. Final Report Due
Saturday Shuttle Travel from Pisté to Cancun — no scheduled program activities
Sunday Return Travel from Cancun to Indianapolis
Course Summary:
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