Tinker Visiting Professors' Courses

Shared Pasts: Collaborative Archaeology in Mesoamerica and the Andes

Bárbara Arroyo
November 13, 12:00 - 5:00 PM
Social Sciences Tea Room (SSRB 201)

This workshop equips participants with the tools and perspectives needed for public engagement in interpreting and preserving Mesoamerican and Andean archaeological heritage. Participants will engage in interactive activities to explore the ethics and inclusivity of storytelling and outreach. A forum discussion is planned to present diverse perspectives from the multiple publics involved in archaeological research, with Dr. Luis Muro, assistant curator of South American Anthropology at the Field Museum, participating and drawing on his experience working at sites in Peru. Public archaeology has transformed the relationship among archaeologists, communities, and heritage in Mesoamerica and South America. Public archaeology should be considered when designing research that requires a participatory component involving diverse publics. By the end of the workshop, students will be able to: understand the principles of public archaeology, compare experiences from Mesoamerica and South America, analyze real-world heritage conflicts, design participatory strategies, and communicate archaeological findings to diverse audiences. Below is the tentative schedule for the workshop:

Locating the History of the Anthropocene: The Case of Brazil

LACS
José Augusto Pádua
Time TBD

Although the debate on the Anthropocene has been suspended within the International Union of Geological Sciences, the concept continues to be used extensively in the sciences and environmental humanities. One reason for this is that it fills a certain conceptual void, since concepts such as modernity and globalization fail to capture the consequences of the dramatic change in the scale of human presence on the planet, especially since the mid-20th century. This new historical and environmental reality, however, has been discussed mainly at a high level of aggregation. In general, global trends regarding population, energy consumption, etc. are analyzed. The problem is that, contrary to the perspective of geological stratigraphy, major global historical transformations do not happen all at once and in a globally uniform manner. Nor are they ever spontaneous or automatic. They occur differently in different places, involving concrete social actors, decisions, and institutions. These transformations spread through exogenous and endogenous movements, producing conflicts, adherence, and resistance. Historical analysis, therefore, allows us to examine in a situated manner the socioeconomic and cultural processes that converged in the making of the global phenomenon of the Anthropocene. The challenge is connecting the macro view of the Anthropocene with the diverse concrete realities of human history, discussing how specific regions participated in the construction of this global change and experienced its consequences.

The course aims to discuss the case of Brazil as a concrete example of how a Latin American country fits into the broader history of the Anthropocene. Among the points to be examined are 1) the environmental history of the colonial making of its territory, marked by an archipelago of regional occupations surrounded by gigantic areas of wilderness; 2) the formation of regional economies based on the destructive exploitation of its biological and mineral diversity; 3) its initially marginal participation in the world of industrial revolutions, except as a supplier of occasionally relevant natural products; 4) its strong entry into the so-called Great Acceleration after 1945, both as an exporter of primary resources and through the rapid and unbalanced transition of its society to patterns of production and consumption identified with the formation of the Anthropocene; 5) The concrete prospects for the country's presence in the future of the Anthropocene, taking into account the ecological wealth of its territory and the contradictory social and cultural trends that can be detected today. Each topic of the course will discuss the actors, policies, conflicts, interests, and cultural factors present in the major changes that have taken place. These changes, especially since the 19th century, are complexly connected to the global transformations that have produced the historical condition now identified by the concept of the Anthropocene.

Organizational Solutions

LACS
Julio Saguir
Time TBD

Organizational Solutions examines how public organizations design and implement policies under real-world constraints. Drawing from case-based experiences in the Government of Tucumán, Argentina, the course explores challenges of strategic planning, inter-agency coordination, data governance, civil society engagement, and internal management within the public sector. Rather than prescribing managerial tools, the course invites students to analyze how institutional contexts, political incentives, and administrative capacities shape implementation outcomes. Through cases, discussion, and reflective exercises, students engage with broader questions about how governments build organizational capacity, learn, and innovate from within.