1. I am a double-degree student with a B.S. Communication Studies and a B.A. Interdisciplinary Studies: Third World Studies, also I am minoring in Economics. I have concentrated my field of study within Latin America, focusing on the local economic and global communicative aspects of the impact within this region of the world and how they impact it. Many courses I have taken have been of relevance to this issue: History of Latin America, Latin American Politics, Persuasion (a Communication course), Gender/Race/Class/Sexuality, Politics of Developing Nations, and of course my Economics courses (which most will be taken in the spring semester). In the summer of 2009 I participated in a short-term faculty-led program through Appalachian State to rural Ecuador in the Amazon with the Anthropology department under the direction of Dr. Tim Smith. We were conducting research on the local indigenous communities' contact with oil-conglomerate representatives, who essentially manipulated them with simple necessities to have a pipeline run through their 'chagras' (gardens) to pump oil to the coastline. Consequences followed of course, therefore we also observed historical, gender and identity aspects of this culture to better understand how this kind of manipulation happened to them, while also gathering a basic knowledge of how this has happened through the last few centuries. This research was the most relevant to my field of study.
2. One topic I would be interested in pursuing this semester is very similar to my research in Ecuador: examine the local economic and global communicative aspects in a specific region (undecided) within Latin America and present a thesis with this. Other topic ideas are examine just the economic qualities, or communicative qualities, within a Latin American region and determine historical and contemporary aspects of how the economic or communicative worlds have impacted said region.
Please leave comments generously! Thanks for your interest. Bri
I would be quite interested to read a thesis about global and economic aspects of a Latin American region. Why are you thinking about focusing on the LOCAL economic and the GLOBAL communicative aspects?
ReplyDeleteWell, local economy because I'm not as learned on the global economy yet (will be after the spring semester I hope!), and global communication because I am much more knowledgeable in that area. Good or bad?
ReplyDeleteGood. But is there a second possible topic you've been considering as well?
ReplyDeleteTechnically I have three topics there - though I did not make it very apparent. The other two topics were to look at just economic aspects or look at communicative aspects in a particular Latin American region - specifically where there are large indigenous populations since I am more familiar with that area of research methodology.
ReplyDeleteI see them now. Still, it might help to give us two more developed possibilities -- for instance, pick out a specfic region for us that you might explore, and then give an example of the sorts of issues that exist there that you might want to examine.
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