Guatemala 2023 Field School

Organizers & facilitiators: Dr. Catherine Nolin (UNBC Geography) and Grahame Russell of Rights Action ran this field school in May 2023. Look for a future offering in May 2025.

INFO SESSION - ZOOM Recording. 2 December 2022

Field School 2021
Field School 2010

Who is Eligible?

We hope you will consider participating in this Field school and, perhaps, inform other students who may be interested as well. This field school is for UNBC students as well as students at universities across Canada – both senior undergraduates and graduate students. We will facilitate non-UNBC student participation via Zoom before our departure. Please contact us for an application form.

The Plan

Week 1

The first week of the course takes place at the UNBC campus in Prince George in late April and early May 2023. Students will prepare for this intense week of classes by reading material made available one month before the course commences. During the UNBC-based seminars we will discuss both theoretical issues of power and human rights as well as specific historical and contemporary aspects of Guatemala's violent past and present. Pre-reading and course work will help to prepare you for an intense Field School experience in Guatemala.

Week 2 and 3

Weeks two and three take place in Guatemala. Grahame Russell of Rights Action will facilitate all aspects of our time in Guatemala including set-up, guiding, translation, transportation, and so forth. All students will return to Antigua for a final day of reflection, discussion, and analysis of our various experiences. The final form and content of the Field school will be worked out in consultation with Rights Action, participating students, and Dr. Nolin.

Over the course of approximately 14 full days in Guatemala, participants will meet with Guatemalans and some North Americans working for human rights and the environment. The group will travel (by rented van) to and spend nights in rural communities seeking justice for environmental and health harms caused by North American mining companies; to the coffee-growing regions of the country to meet with indigenous organizations working for Fair Trade and equitable trade arrangements; communities resisting forced eviction from their ancestral lands to make way for African palm 'for export'; meet with people working for the rights of sweat-shop (maquiladora) workers; and human rights organizations & the Guatemalan Forensic Anthropology Foundation who work to clarify past violence, historical memory and justice. (Closer to the actual dates, Nolin & Russell will set out a detailed 14-day itinerary.)

Field School Leaders

Testimonio

Grahame Russell and Catherine Nolin have worked together since 2004 to organize and facilitate these experiential learning opportunities in Guatemala. They recently co-edited and co-wrote several sections of their new book Testimonio: Canadian Mining in the Aftermath of Genocides in Guatemala (2021). We encourage participants to access this book via Between the Lines Press, the UNBC Bookstore, or the UNBC Library.

Grahame Russell

Grahame Russell is a non-practising lawyer, adjunct professor at the University of Northern British Colombia, author, and, since 1995, co-director of Rights Action. Rights Action funds community-controlled development, environmental defense and human rights projects in Guatemala and Honduras, as well as Chiapas, El Salvador and Oaxaca; and carries out education and activism work in the USA and Canada related to global human rights, environmental and development issues. See: Grahame Russell and Rights Action

Catherine Nolin​

Dr. Catherine Nolin is a Professor of Geography and has long-standing interests in issues of Maya refugee movement, Guatemalan forced migration and refugee experiences in Canada, and critical development studies related to resistance to Canadian mining operations in Guatemala. Catherine and Grahame have organized and facilitated eight field schools to Guatemala in 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010 (plus a graduate student delegation in August 2010), 2012, 2014, and 2018; and Catherine worked with the Peruvian Forensic Anthropology Team (EPAF) to co-facilitate one interdisciplinary field school to Peru in 2012.  See: Catherine Nolin

Required Courses

Undergraduate​

  • GEOGRAPHY 333 – GEOGRAPHY Field School
  • GEOGRAPHY 426 – GEOGRAPHIES of Culture, Rights & Power

Graduate​

  • NRES 763 – GEOGRAPHY Field School
  • GEOGRAPHY 626 – GEOGRAPHIES of Culture, Rights & Power

Optional Course

Independent Study (arranged with your home program taken concurrently or immediately after the field school)

Cost

Cost = to be determined - but approximately $1500 + airfare + tuition