The University of Florida and the Autonomous University of the Yucatan have cooperated in an exchange program since 1984. The convenio between our universities includes undergraduate summer programs, academic year exchanges from each university, coordination with other university programs, MA and Doctoral programs in anthropology and related disciplines. This past summer students on the "Anthropology of Yucatan" course developed cyberethnographies as part of their course on the history and culture of southern Mexico.
Carlos Viera, Mark Brenner, Allan Burns, and Roger Medina, teachers on the Yucatan Exchange program have breakfast after the 1999 summer program at the Caribe hotel, August 4th, 1999.
This summer the 20 students enrolled in the Anthropology of the Yucatan course (taught by Professor Alicia Peon of the University of the Yucatan and Allan Burns of the University of Florida with Alayne Unterberger and the graduate coordinator) are learning ethnography and html publication of their ethnographic projects. The program is six weeks long and centered in the Ciudad Blanca of Merida, Yucatan, Mexico. Students live with families, take courses in intensive Spanish and anthropology, and go on weekly field excursions to villages, sites, and beaches. Sometimes we even go to Chiapas.
This cyberethnography was inspired by the work of Dr. Manuel Luis Carlos of the University of California Monterey (whose son once went on the Florida Yucatan Program). Dr. Carlos projects have been in Queretero. Florida students studied the work of students at Monterey and then designed their own projects. They learned how to develop an idea into a presentation, received informed consent for publishing on the web, carried out research, and and wrote innovative final projects. Some of them are in the form of ethnographic reports, and others use other reporting styles, including a "telenovela" or perhaps better put, a "cybernovela" of young people in Mexico today.. The web mistress of the project is Emily Whetsel.
This project owes a great deal of thanks to the Autonomous University of the Yucatan, especially Francisco Fernandez (Facultad de Ciencias Antropologicas), Gabriela Quintal Avila (Intercambios academicos), Zulema Aguilar (Facultad de Educacion), Carlos Viera Castro (Facultad de Educacion), Alicia Peon (Facultad de Ciencias Antropologicas). And of course the project would not be possible without the enthusiastic work of all of the students.
