It is ironic that a location with deep global connections -the Amazon- has long been thought of as a pristine refuge, ecologically and culturally, from the rest of the world. Over the last two decades, people have come to realize however, that the Amazon was always managed forest, with a significant population that shaped their environment to meet their needs. A recent BBC program entitled “Unnatural Histories- the Amazon” captures the evidence that has changed how we thought about the Amazon’s prehistory. We now know that the Amazon was not always isolated from neighboring regions in its prehistory. The Tupi people spread from the Amazon to the Brazilian coast, replacing the existing population. The Inca employed Amazonian forces as archers, while Guarani raided as far as the Andes. The Caribs spread out into the islands of the Caribbean, where they later met Columbus. The region was integrated with neighboring peoples throughout South America. …
This summer I am teaching one of my favorite classes on the Amazon Rainforest. The class covers ecology, cultural globalization, native peoples, film, urban development, history and economics. One of the reasons I’ve enjoyed teaching it is to be able to talk about the Amazon in film and literature. But I’ve also found a great video resource. The website Top Documentary Films contains free films for either class or personal use. I’m planning to use clips from the Fight for the Amazon series, which looks at environmental and social issues in the Amazon. “Raids in the Rainforest” follows the young director of Brazil’s national park system as she tries to protect her parks. This would be a great choice for an environmental section of an introductory class. “The Justice Boat” looks at a traveling judge, who travels on boat to remote areas of the Amazon to bring the state to the riverdwellers. It would be a good choice for a class that dealt with the role of the state in the developing world. Finally, “The Internet Indians” examines how indigenous peoples (the Ashaninka) are using the internet to defend their interests. It would be a good choice for a class dealing with either the environment or cultural globalization. Another great choice on that topic would be the Youtube video on Google’s collaboration with the Surui, called “Trading Bows and Arrows for Laptops.” This brief (around seven minute) clip is a pick me up that tends to cheer up students during classes that can sometimes cover very dark topics. …
I’ve talked about multi-drug resistant tuberculosis on this site before, but I want to return to the topic because of some recent articles on the topic covered on NPR. Last year there was some good news about tuberculosis globally, as researchers found that the total number of cases was declining, particularly in China. A new national tuberculosis survey in China this year, however, reveals that 10% of all new cases of tuberculosis diagnosed that country are multi-drug resistant, while 8% of these cases were infected with XDR, or extensively drug resistant tuberculosis. For these people, the treatment options are limited, and may not be successful. The article in the New England Journal of Medicine described the problems within the Chinese health care system that are driving this problem. But these challenges sound very similar to difficulties in other nations, including India and South Africa …
I am teaching a new course “Theoretical Foundations of Global Studies Theory,” so I am reading broadly right now, particularly in the area of postcolonialism and critical theory. One of the best books that I have read has been Pal Ahluwalia’s Out of Africa, which argues that the roots of French postcolonialism lie in that nation’s long and tortured history in Algeria. He makes the argument by tracing the lives of key thinkers -Camus, Sartre, Cixous, Lyotard, Fanon, Derrida and Bourdieau- to show how their Algerian experience shaped their writings. In Algeria, the key question that people faced was “What is my identity?” Europeans from many nations adopted a persona of being more French than the French, in order to distinguish themselves from the Arab population. But this identity was contingent. For example, Algeria’s Jews first received citizenship, then lost it under Vichy France, and did not have it reinstated until six months after the war. This context shaped, for example, the experience of Helene Cixous, the famous feminist scholar. As the war forced people to take sides and decide on their identity -did they really belong in their homeland?- multiple academics experienced exile. …
I’ve only begun using rubrics for grading during the last year, but I’ve quickly come to believe that they are a better way to give student feedback. They do take time to prepare. But I have been sharing the rubrics with students beforehand, and I believe that the students’ work is of a better quality as a result. Students have fewer questions about their grades, and the grading process itself is quicker, more consistent and clearer. I know that many faculty have been using rubrics for a decade, so I am a latecomer to the trend. But it’s interesting to me that the students themselves are now asking for the rubrics for assignments. I am giving an example of a study guide for the midterm below, then a copy of the rubric for it, which was based on Kim’s work. If you want more materials, be sure to explore our teacher’s manual. Here are the study guide and the rubric: …
This weekend I took part in a K-12 Educators session on Latin America, which the World Affair’s Council organized at Lewis and Clark College. It was an impressive event, which included music and dance exhibitions, as well as breakout sessions on a wide array of topics. I had been asked to present on Brazil. Given that I had an hour, and wanted to leave fifteen minutes for discussion and questions, what could I say to K-12 educators that would be meaningful? What I finally decided to do was to talk first about Brazil’s history for about twenty minutes, and then consider how Brazil’s rapid economic growth is giving its political leadership a chance to address these legacies. As always happens, the best part of the session was the time at the end when I had a chance to talk to the group, which included people from Panama and Peru. And during that conversation I realized that I could have organized the session in another way. I believe that the most important political and economic trend in South America is the waning influence of the United States. And this is a trend not only in the southern hemisphere but also throughout the Americas, as an article about Canada’s trade in today’s Wall Street Journal makes clear. …
This quarter I am teaching the “Introduction to International Studies” class, and this week we were talking about food. I always find that students enjoy this week, in part because crops form part of clear commodity chains so that every student can see the connection between themselves and food producers globally. I’ve also adopted a classroom assignment developed by my friend, Kim Brown, which is quite popular- the chocolate tasting. Later in the class I lectured on bioterrorism and cacao in Brazil, which I’ve also covered in an earlier post here. I also showed Robert Beckford’s clever documentary video on rice, chocolate and gold production, which available for free online. The food unit follows a section on development theories. Beckford’s film was engaging for students, but he also tied events in Africa to IMF/World Bank policies, as well as the global trading system, which makes it a good fit for the class. But before I arrived at the core content of the class, I first did the chocolate tasting.
Picture by Suat Eman at freedigitalphotos.net
I went to my local New Seasons market, where I purchased raw cacao beans. After some taste testing, my daughters gave me the strong advice not to give this to students without some honey to sweeten it. The food court gave me some latex gloves to break up chocolate bars. And World Market had a wide selection of chocolate bars with different levels of cacao. I broke up the chocolate into small blocks on paper towels and called up the class up by rows. We started with the cacao beans. Students were a little hesitant to bite them because the outer shell looks so hard. I explained that these beans were from Ecuador or Peru, the original homeland of cacao, and were used as money in ancient MesoAmerica. After tasting the cacao beans (a few student genuinely liked them, but they weren’t very popular), students then moved to chocolate which had chiles. The ancient Aztecs drank a mix of chiles and chocolate, which was reserved for the elites. It must have been popular- traces of chocolate have been found on the inside of pottery containers found in the U.S. Southwest, where it doubtless was brought on foot. After that the students were able to sample chocolate with different levels of cacao (or cocoa- the term is spelled both ways). The 70% cacao level seemed most popular, while everyone thought the 90% was too bitter (although I favor that with single malt scotch). The class had fun, and nobody took too much chocolate. Many students would break even the small amount of chocolate that I had put out in half. There was a lot of laughter as people watched their friends’ faces as they ate the cacao beans.
I deliberately chose dark chocolate, so that students who were lactose intolerant could take part. But I also warned the students that almost all the chocolate bars said that they were processed in a facility that also handled “milk, nuts and wheat.” If you can have someone help you break up the chocolate (thank you to my amazing graduate assistant) it makes the preparation much easier. …
The World Health Organization is an under-appreciated institution, which often takes on critical tasks. For example, in 2011 it brokered an agreement to end a controversy about viral sample sharing particularly related to avian influenza. This agreement will greatly help with the development of pre-pandemic vaccines, but such achievements attract little press coverage. The WHO receives much more press when it acts as the world’s medical sleuth. When invited, it quickly arrives on the scene wherever a new disease is emerging. At the moment there are no fewer than three new diseases that merit the WHO’s attention. Although they may not each be the next SARS, they all have worrisome aspects.
Last week in my class we focused on security issues, and I compared and contrasted two powerful approaches in the field: Realism and Human Security. Realism is an older approach to security, which claims to have historical roots that stretch back to Thucydides, but perhaps truly began with E.H. Carr in the 1930s. Because of the theory’s richness it is difficult to summarize briefly, and it has evolved through time. But in general, its proponents argue that security is the key issue in international affairs. They also generally share a pessimistic view of human nature, and of the inevitability of war. Realists also view the international system as anarchic, in the sense that they doubt the ability of international law to limit conflict. Realism focuses on threats to the nation-state rather than populations, relies on the military as the key instrument in security, and draws on the usual tools of state-craft, such as alliance formation and power balancing. …
Picture of glacier thanks to puttsk at freedigitalphotos.net
This week there was a disastrous avalanche on the Siachen glacier, which buried perhaps 135 Pakistanis, 124 of whom were troops in the 6th Northern Light Infantry Battalion. It seems unlikely that many of these troops will ever be found, despite a concerted rescue effort, given that they may have been buried under 25 meters (75 feet of snow). The force of the avalanche -over a thousand meter line- was indescribable. This sad incident is but one tragedy in a the strange stand-off between India and Pakistan over a glacier, which must be one of the most inhospitable fortified regions on earth. …
