This will be the the sixth time this course AN450 Anthropological Field School has been offered in Romania. In the past, LIS graduate students from Drexel, Emporia, IU, Bloomington, Pratt, USF and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have taken part. This summer a Romanian anthropologist from Bucharest's National School of Political and Administrative Studies and Romanian students will be in the field with us. This will of course enhance data collection, data quality and data analysis.
Together we will look village sites whose information infrastructures were recently "modernized" by NGOs and take up some issues related to information/knowledge exchange, globalization and modernity.
Last summer this experiential experience was funded in part by
Bilbionet, a project International Research & Exchanges Board (REX)
is implementing in Romania with Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation money.
It is possible that IREX will fund part of this summer's work too.
The course is designed to build competence and confidence in qualitative research methods, particularly ethnography. There will be opportunities to conduct collaborative (small group) qualitative research in areas of one's interest and to publish from data collected in the field. The course is intended to provide students with an analytical toolkit which they can apply to subsequent projects of their own. These are a few of the publications that emerged from the course.
2010 Cheryl Klimaszewski, Gail Bader and James M. Nyce. Who Wins? Who Loses?: Representation and “Restoration” of the Past in a Rural Romanian Community. Library Review, 59 (2):92-106.
2009 Catherine Closet-Crane, Susan Dopp, Jacqueline Solis and James M. Nyce. Why Study Up? The Elite Appropriation of Science, Institution and Tourism as a Development Agenda in Maramureş, Romania. Advances in Library Administration and Organization 27:221-238.
2009 Cheryl Klimaszewski and James M. Nyce. Does Universal Access Mean Equitable Access?: What an Information Infrastructure Study of a Rural Romanian Community Can Tell Us. New Library World 110(5/6): 219-236.
This study visit is sponsored the Rinker Center for International Programs and the Department of Anthropology, Ball State University. For details about previous visits to Romania, please go to
http://www.bsu.edu/news/article/0,1370,7273-850-64867,00.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/romania/737677/Saxon-corner-of-a-Romanian-field.html
One student, who has gone with us to Romania several times, has put together a website of her own: You might want to look this since it gives a student's perspective on these study visits to Romania.
http://www.onehandlaughing.com/viscri
Undergraduate/graduate students from any discipline may apply. Students are welcome to email me re: this research/study visit. Class dates are May 12-June 6. This summer the cost is estimated to be $4759. This includes airfare, food/ lodging, car rental/gas, translators and 6 credit hours.
JM Nyce
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