International Studies

I am living in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil also known as “A Cidade Maravilhosa”/The Marvelous city. And by all accounts it is a marvelous city, the ocean crashes against mountains, a gigantic statue of Christ sits atop a mountain watching the city, and palace like hotels are surrounded by some of the most infamous slums in the world known here as Favelas. Rio really has it all, you can find Favelas with 14 year-olds carrying guns. That is actually why I came, to see if I could help the people in the slums in any way. I quickly realized that the images you see on tv and the stories you hear are not as common as they make you believe. For the most part they are just people trying to get by, while surrounded by mostly high-income families and tourists that have a negative idea of them just because of where they live.
When I decided to come to Rio I had no idea how important the next few months will be for Brazil. Rio just won the bid for the summer Olympics in 2016 and in the next couple years there will be several new stadiums and buildings put up to get ready for this. Developing Rio is a great idea and I am sure it will be great for the city but the problem is how the government plans to get the land for the new buildings.
The government announced in the local paper their plan to remove several Favelas to make room for the new stadiums needed. For several of these communities (possibly all of them) the newspaper was the first time they heard that their communities were slated for removal. One of these communities is called Vila Autodromo and they are the first one scheduled to be removed. In fact to date, not one government official has talked to the community leaders of Vila Autodromo face-to-face. After a protest in front of city hall they finally got a meeting set for March 3rd but it is a closed meeting and seems very shady. Vila Autodromo is an excellent example of a peaceful productive community that the city should be showing off and encouraging and developing not ignoring and breaking up. There are still lots of details to workout and lots of meetings to organize but we will be working to make sure that the mayor is involving the the people in the process. If the government is paying so little attention to one of the most productive Favelas imagine how they would treat the ones that have more problems? I will keep you updated on what happens after the meetings and what is happening in Vila Autodromo and other communities in Rio.

Today at a session on the relationship between International Studies and Peace Studies, George Lopez made the statement, “Peace Studies is like the tortoise, coming from behind slow and steady; International Studies is more like the hare that’s just been dropped out of a helicopter.” His point was that the “heyday” of IS is past; the funding was strong in the 80s but has dropped off, and Peace Studies is the movement of the future.

Now George Lopez is a very cool guy and intense scholar, and he has been in academia longer than I have; check him out at http://kroc.nd.edu/people/directory/faculty/george-lopez        And I know that part of his purpose in making that statement was to encourage Peace Studies, not discourage International Studies. But still, I am not sure I agree. I have no doubt that Peace Studies is important, relevant, and poised for growth, but it seems to me that issues of sustainability are more at the forefront of donors’ and foundations’ minds. The two are related, of course; but if there’s anything to the notion that “resource wars” will fuel many conflicts in this century, then it makes more sense to devote funding / attention to solving those underlying problems than to resolving the conflicts that will arise if we don’t address the environment.

But this is not an entry about academic turf wars; may we all live long and prosper! Rather, whether I or anyone else agrees with the view that IS is passe depends very much on how one defines, and redefines, International Studies. Our “parent” field, International Relations, may offer an incomplete and discipline-bound view of the world, but it’s certainly not obsolete–not when our president is travelling to Cairo to lecture the Egyptians on why Israel has a right to exist. “Area Studies” gets short shrift these days; but when I look at what is going on in Central Asia (Pakistan/Afghanistan), having people with a solid understanding of particular regions seems more urgent than ever. (Most multinationals are still organized by world region; despite the internet, we remain still physically and culturally captive to geography.)

The big difference between International Studies and Peace Studies, it seems to me, is that IS is a “catch-all,” an over-arching endeavor that risks becoming too diffuse if it tries to be all things to all people. At the undergraduate level, though, it provides a flexible framework for students to discover “what in the world” they want to learn, do, and be. Peace Studies is a much more closely defined field; and since our notions of what “disciplines” are keep changing, I wouldn’t be surprised if an area like “conflict resolution” is considered a discipline in the future. It has some clear foundational insights, methods and methodologies that are very coherent. Hal Culbertson today kept referring to conflict resolution as a “skill”–which it is, in the real world; but as a subject of academic study, I think it’s more than that. (Kroc has an assistant professor of conflict resolution, Larissa Fast, so perhaps they’ve dubbed it a discipline already!)

These are “academic” questions about how we organize knowledge and teaching, and I’m sure the university of the mid-21st century will contain a number of fields we haven’t even imagined yet. But the question for students right now is, “what do YOU want International Studies to be?” What knowledge and skills should this field of study give you; what areas of eneavor (aka jobs) should it prepare you for? Drop me a line and let me know!

This week I am at the Kroc Institute for Peace Studies with a BGSU “Team” led by Dr. Marc Simon (Director of Peace Studies) and Dr Ellen Gorsevski (COMS). I call it “summer camp for faculty”–in the very best sense! It’s a chance to explore new ideas, meet new people who areactive in the field, and get to know some of my BGSU “homies” better. Amazingly, the whole thing is being offered at no charge to participating faculty; we just paid our own travel and housing and some of the meals. (We did have to compete to be accepted as a team!) Still, faculty life is good; it’s a beautiful campus, and I’m looking forward to learning a lot this week. Will keep the blog updated! Here’s the conference link:

http://kroc.nd.edu/newsevents/events/2009/06/14/493

Interesting acquaintance of the day: Dr. Daniel Groody, CSC, a priest and asst prof of theology who spent years working with migrants on the US-Mexico boder and has written several books about the theology of migration. (I never knew there was a such a thing!) It is interesting, and just a little bit jarring, to be on the campus of a Catholic University where topics like theology and religious calling are front and center. Prof. Groody (or should I say Father Daniel?) wanted to stay in the border region, but his religious community decided he should be a college professor instead–and because of that vow of obedience, that’s what he did!

Just one of many fascinating people at this gathering!

Are you sick of “reselling” your textbooks at the end of a class only to get pennies on the dollar? Do something that will make you feel good instead of cheated: donate those books for global literacy! At the end of each summer session, International Studies will be collecting books to send to Better World Books. ALL kinds of books are needed: some will be donated directly to Books for Africa, some will be resold on the BetterWorld website (with a portion of the proceeds going to Books for Africa), and anything unusable will be recycled.

Please note that BetterWorldBooks is a for-profit organization with a social purpose. Their usual arrangement is to pay a commission to the book drive organizer and make a donation to the designated non-profit; IS is directing its “commission” to go directly to Books for Africa, so we will NOT make money on this and the charity will get double its usual amount. Since BetterWorldBooks provides all collection, advertising, and shipping materials, and pays shipping costs, there is no cost to International Studies or BGSU.

Are you blogging while studying abroad? If so, the International Studies program would like to know about it and publish it on our blog! Please contact me at either isp@bgsu.edu or kfoell@bgsu.edu, or just post a comment right here on the blog!

Here are two I’ve found so far:

Our own IS major, Sheila Campbell, is blogging from Mexico: http://blogs.bgsu.edu/csheila/

And I don’t know who this is, but s/he’s having a great tiem in London: http://blogs.bgsu.edu/londonparisrome2009cmb/