My last post and
my last day in La Paz – I am dumbfounded by how quickly my time went, overjoyed
by how much I’ve learned, and amazed by how much love I have received from the
city over the course of the last two months. Minibus rides, Heladería Sandra, anticuchos de Calle
21, salmonella in my bloodstream, 3:00am stars on the altiplano. It’s funny how
experiences shape us, how I am a little different now, better, more empathetic.
We’ve talked a
lot over the last four weeks about how social science is so hard, yet so
rewarding, because we are delving in to study the human. And humans are fragile
and strong and fickly and set, all simultaneously. I think that's what makes all of this so fun.
Over the course of the past month, especially, I started to see my interactions with people in a different way. I found myself sitting on the minibus, observing going what was happening around me, asking what these seemingly ordinary things can tell me about a greater society. Or maybe I was eating with my family and wow, I notice an action that tells me a little more about class inequality in Bolivia. Even statistics, I've learned a lot about what numbers can tell me about greater happenings.
I've started calling it everyday ethnography, the poignant art of listening and noticing and observing. I'm reading a book on education in Bolivia right now: they called their methodology "convivir, dialogar y compartir" (live with, dialogue, and share) -- I like that. And I think that is why I am starting to love anthropology so much -- I am realizing the ways in which we all want to tell our stories and truths, and anthropology, at least to me, seems to be a place where lives are uplifted and tried to be understood.
Bolivia gave me a lot, but if it gave me anything in full it was the practice of empathy, the art of asking a good question, and the importance of then listening.
Over the course of the past month, especially, I started to see my interactions with people in a different way. I found myself sitting on the minibus, observing going what was happening around me, asking what these seemingly ordinary things can tell me about a greater society. Or maybe I was eating with my family and wow, I notice an action that tells me a little more about class inequality in Bolivia. Even statistics, I've learned a lot about what numbers can tell me about greater happenings.
I've started calling it everyday ethnography, the poignant art of listening and noticing and observing. I'm reading a book on education in Bolivia right now: they called their methodology "convivir, dialogar y compartir" (live with, dialogue, and share) -- I like that. And I think that is why I am starting to love anthropology so much -- I am realizing the ways in which we all want to tell our stories and truths, and anthropology, at least to me, seems to be a place where lives are uplifted and tried to be understood.
Bolivia gave me a lot, but if it gave me anything in full it was the practice of empathy, the art of asking a good question, and the importance of then listening.
No comments:
Post a Comment