Institute for Village Studies

Study Abroad: Four trips in 2022: 1. Students traveled to SE Asia, which included sites in Vietnam and Thailand, in the spring as soon as borders opened post-COVID and travel was permitted. We partnered with several community-based organizations and Chiang Mai University. Over our four weeks in Thailand, students worked with residents to assess environmental conservation efforts and the impacts of development, as well as understand cultural and ethnic diversity in indigenous populations and the region. The second four weeks in Vietnam built student skills in asset-based community development and rapid participatory appraisal, where they then worked with and taught a community in the Mekong Delta about what they had learned. Local partners continue to work in this community to promote community-driven development initiatives. Participants included 12 students from Thailand and 12 university students from the United States, and when traveling to Vietnam, 25 students from Ho Chi Minh City. 2. Eight students from the US traveled to central Vietnam, where they participated in a fieldwork program with Vietnamese (10 students) and Japanese students (4 students). They were given the opportunity to work directly with several community-based organizations, government agencies and community members. In doing so, they cultivated professional skills in community-based research, development and project management. By the end of the trip, students used the knowledge they gained in the field to co-create a project idea with community members that were then presented to local government agencies and implemented by stakeholders. 3. Twelve students participated in fieldwork in the Salish Sea bioregion in NW Washington and Canada to consider the natural history of the region and consider how biodiversity is defined, measured, mapped, and conceptualized by biologists and other scientists. Along the way, they were able to engage with communities that continue to depend on biodiversity despite shifts in land management, climate, and economic needs to learn how they might support those efforts. This program partnered with NGOs and public and Indigenous land managers engaged in the stewardship of biodiversity and cultural heritage. 4. Fourteen students participated in fieldwork in Langtang National Park in the Himalayas of central Nepal, one of the areas hardest hit by the 2015 earthquake. Participants learned about the history of the region and park, and how communities continue to depend on biodiversity despite shifts in land management, climate, economic needs and the most recent disaster. After gaining an understanding of the region, they worked with local community members on projects related to local livelihoods development, particularly in Gatlang and areas along the Tamang Heritage trail.