Making a Traditional Study-Abroad Program Geographic: A Theoretically Informed Regional Approach

Abstract

Geographers have been active in numerous focused study-abroad programs, but few have created or led language-based programs overseas. This article describes the development of a Spanish language program in Ecuador and how it was made geographic primarily through a theoretically informed regional geography course. The approach employs theoretical and conceptual approaches from geography and cognate fields in order to understand the landscapes and livelihoods of a given place. The article provides examples of historic landscapes, landscapes of production, and migrant landscapes. The examples demonstrate the origin of material landscape features, how landscapes are processes integral to society and the economy at multiple scales, and the labor and capital that are used to create landscapes. Geographers have much to contribute to language-based programs and incorporating landscape interpretation is a particularly useful approach.

Key Words:

• landscape
• Ecuador
• study abroad

Acknowledgments

I wish to thank Tom Brown, Charlie Mahaffey, Norm Moline, Steve Wille, and Tom Walker for their instruction, inspiration, and mentoring. I also thank numerous professionals at CEDEI, who have done tremendous work for the Ohio University program, and the Department of Geography, which allowed me to develop the program. Finally, I thank Tim Anderson, Geoff Buckley, Jim Biles, and three anonymous reviewers who provided me valuable feedback on this article.

Brad Jokisch is an associate professor of geography at Ohio University, Athens, Ohio, USA. His research focuses on the relationships among migration, environmental change, and development, mostly in the Ecuadorian Andes and Upper Amazon.

Notes

1. I was the on-site program director in 1999 and 2000, and I was codirector and supervisor of on-site directors in 2001 and 2002. From 2003 to 2006 I was codirector of the program, but another professor supervised the students on-site. With the exception of 2005 I accompanied the group during the first week of activities and in two years I joined the group in late May to participate in the end-of-the-program field trips. Some of the pedagogical issues I discuss in this article also come from working with a Fulbright-Hays Group Abroad during the summer of 2000 and from a distinct nonlanguage Ohio University program during December 1999. Finally, when I was conducting fieldwork in 1994 and 1995 near Cuenca I worked with CEDEI as a part-time assistant on a variety of university abroad programs.

2. Initially, students at all levels of Spanish language preparation were accepted; by the third year of the program eligibility was limited to students who had had at least two intermediate courses in Spanish.