Teaching for Human Rights Advocacy in Guatemala: The Case for Transdisciplinarity

Abstract

The NAPA-OT Field School in Guatemala is a transdisciplinary, applied medical anthropology field school program that puts students from anthropology and occupational therapy in a common framework focused on human rights issues. This paper by the co-directors of the field school will highlight the situated learning-by- doing strategy that underpins the NAPA-OT program and critically examine the benefits and challenges that arise for both students and the host community. Within the context of post-civil war Guatemala, field school students learn ethnographic methods by contributing to applied projects advancing health as a human right; however, the field school must confront critical issues in maintaining student safety to enable effective learning in a sometimes volatile setting. Local collaborators, in turn, are able to build research capacity and utilize the social capital of outsiders to advance local development projects. For example, field school students have examined inequalities in access to health care by conducting a study of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) providing referrals for surgical care, and the report generated by that study is being utilized by NGOs to build a shared surgical referral system to improve access to services. Ultimately, educators “in the field” have the opportunity to expose students to lived realities that would remain theoretical in a traditional classroom setting, but they also bear the responsibility of ensuring that their programs bear real benefits for the host community.