{"id":156,"date":"2014-03-09T17:09:49","date_gmt":"2014-03-09T17:09:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/old.aigine.kg\/reset-building-anthropology-in-eurasia-first-summer-session-2007\/"},"modified":"2019-12-26T13:34:58","modified_gmt":"2019-12-26T13:34:58","slug":"reset-building-anthropology-in-eurasia-first-summer-session-2007","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/aigine.kg\/?p=156&lang=en","title":{"rendered":"ReSET Building Anthropology in Eurasia, first summer session, 2007"},"content":{"rendered":"

Regional Seminar in Excellence of Teaching (ReSET) Building Anthropology in Eurasia
Higher Education Support Program, Open Society Institute<\/p>\n

First summer session The Growth of Anthropological Knowledge<\/strong><\/p>\n

Place:         Royal Beach Hotel, Chocktal, the Issyk-Kol, Kyrgyzstan
Dates:        July 15 \u2013 August 5, 2007.
Language: English<\/p>\n

The purpose of the project Building Anthropology in Eurasia is to provide an opportunity for participants to integrate anthropological understandings and methodologies into their own research and teaching, as well as to develop teaching strategies and methods, which are in use in anthropological teaching institutions internationally, as applicable for their own contexts.  We expect this experience will provide participants with concrete experience on which they can build their own pedagogy, as well as help them to orient themselves in international anthropology and anthropologically-influenced scholarship.<\/p>\n

This first year\u2019s summer session aimed to lay the groundwork for the ReSET\u2019s three-year sequence.  First, it established the group, including participants and faculty, as working in a common, three-year undertaking \u2014 to build the field of anthropology in the region.<\/p>\n

Second, it initiated the work of the project, including a variety of assigned tasks which in many cases were be undertakings for which the participants have limited preparation, despite the fact that they are advanced along the career path of university educators.  The Anthro_ReSET itself employs educational strategies which it seeks to enable participants to pursue, such as empowering the learner to learn actively, and adopting an experimental approach of which all participants are expected to assume ownership.  As the tasks and strategies become familiar, the participants will increasingly assume the leadership.<\/p>\n

Third, the first year is devoted in part to providing a solid orientation in the field of anthropology, and the ways that anthropological approaches can be employed in a variety of fields.  The participants background for this is varied, thereby allowing for a multi-directional exchange of knowledge and perspectives. At the end of the first summer session, participants was not necessarily have the knowledge of anthropology that one usually is expected to have before embarking on teaching or original research in the field (i.e., the knowledge of, say, a doctoral student at the end of the first year), but they understood what the field consists of, where to look to gain a deeper and broader understanding, and what is entailed in becoming a part of anthropological scholarship.<\/p>\n

Fourth, the participants gained practice in building close links between the processes of research and teaching\/learning.  All practical activities, including especially research projects, are oriented toward providing inputs for the process of teaching.  The Anthro_ReSET fosters a model of teaching \u2014 characteristic of anthropology in general \u2014 which is based on the conviction that anthropological knowledge is a process.  Learning anthropology entails discovering the relevance of the concepts which make up anthropological thought in their discovery and application, and thus must inherently be an active process on the part of the student.  The attitude to the authoritative text, thus, must be one where it is not assumed to have absolute significance, but rather its significance must be discovered in each reading.  Furthermore, the teacher\u2019s own relation to knowledge must also be one of discovery, and thus teaching is most effective when it is in the context of an active relationship to knowledge; involving students in the teacher\u2019s own process of discovery is one of the most effective ways to nurture the qualities of a good learner and a good teacher.<\/p>\n

Finally, the end of the contact session was be a natural transition from a structured learning context and agenda to a context where the individual has to seek out inputs from others \u2014 which can then be from specific resource faculty, from other participants, from the literature, etc.  On the basis of electronic exchanges, the participants should create their own network which can sustain them collectively with sources of inspiration, shared knowledge, feedback on their work, etc.  While the resource faculty will remain available for consultations, the richer reservoir of support can be found in the group.<\/p>\n

The first year\u2019s theme, The Growth of Anthropological Knowledge, explored:<\/strong><\/p>\n