Occupy, Organize, and Produce:
The Factories, Streets, and Dreams
Highlights:
*Dive In: Language and Cultural Immersion (3 credits)
*Complexity and Unity: Combined Study of Spanish, Economics, and Gender and Social Movements (3 credits)
*Theory and Practice at Work (2 credits) – internship in Recovered Factories
Program fees and dates
Fee: $ 3,000.00 (There is a $50 non-refundable application fee).
Dates: July 9 to August 11, 2006
Deadline for applications: May 19, 2006
Acceptance confirmation: May 22, 2006
Student letter of confirmation to attend program, plus deposit of $500.00: June 5, 2006
Final Payment: June 19, 2006.
Fee includes:
—All tuition and fees (8 Carnegie credits)
—All room and board accommodations (with local family)
—Scheduled program excursions
—Costs associated with scheduled day and evening outings
Fee does not include:
—Life and health insurance coverage
—Meals
—Transportation within the City
—Airfare
—Personal Expenses
—Airport exit fee ($ 18.00)
APPLICATION FORM (DOC)
HEALTH AND LIABILITY FORMS (RTF)
Argentina Autonomista
SUMMER ABROAD PROGRAM
The University of Buenos Aires (UBA), the Argentina Autonomista Project and the Institute for Social Ecology are pleased to announce this opportunity to participate in a five-week intersession travel study to Argentina. Students earn 8 credits through a combination of faculty facilitated language and cultural immersion experiences, assigned readings, classroom presentations, visits to historical and cultural sites and institutions, as well as visits to sites of popular movement activity including worker-recovered factories where students will internship during four weeks.
Students will develop Spanish language skills and critical thinking through an active appreciation of Argentina's unique culture and history. They will learn first-hand from the leaders of the recovered-factories workers' movement about the origins and character of Argentina's economic development and crisis—the economic development imposed from above as well as the economic innovation reclaimed from below.
Context
Throughout the late 1980's and the 1990's, economists and policy-makers celebrated Argentina 's economy as evidence of the success of free markets. The social and economic recipes advocated by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, as well as by he Washington Consensus seemed to have succeeded in raising the standard of living for Argentina 's poor and working classes.
But Argentina , the IMF poster child of the nineties, collapsed in December 2001 and defaulted on its huge debt. A wealthy South American country until recently, Argentina now bears the wounds that result from almost thirty years of corporate plundering -almost half of the population lives below the poverty line and seventeen percent is unemployed. Although born in a land that feeds millions of people worldwide, Argentinean children die of hunger everyday.
Responses to Argentina ’s economic crisis have included a swelling of creativity and autonomy from below. Argentina is a place where workers have organized to recover means of production. Today, studies show that there are 161 recovered enterprises with approximately 9,000 workers -a almost unique phenomenon of workers' control under a struggling, dependent capitalist system.
Argentina is the living example of what corporate globalization can bring: unemployment, poverty and hunger. In the midst of a severe IMF structural adjustment and the resulting economic crisis, there have been massive street protests. In addition, countless coordinated micro-enterprise cooperatives have been organized by unemployed women and men, numerous neighborhood associations have been formed, and many other autonomous popular initiatives have arisen.
"The enemy is not that big, we are just looking at it from our knees."
(graffiti in Buenos Aires )
PARTICIPATING INSTITUTIONS
The approach
The program is hosted at the University of Buenos Aires, the largest and most renowned public university in Argentina . The university currently has over 100,000 students, with a growing international student population. The facilities are located downtown Buenos Aires (http://www.filo.uba.ar).
The mission of the Institute for Social Ecology (ISE) is the creation of educational experiences that enhance people's understanding of their relationship to the natural world and each other. The purpose of the ISE's programs is the preparation of well-rounded students who can work effectively as participants in the process of ecological reconstruction (http://www.social-ecology.org).
The purpose of the Argentina Autonomista Project is to bring news about events in Argentina to North America and Europe , through people-to-people exchanges and the internet (web and email) and to facilitate non-hierarchical communication within Argentina , especially among groups with a minimum of resources.
This program draws on the collaborative efforts of these institutions as well as on the vibrant classroom of the social movements and living history of the people’s struggle in Argentina .
Housing and accommodations
Students will be hosted by local families experienced in hosting foreign students. Students can also request help in renting fully furnished apartments.
Prerequisites
1) Enrollment in a degree granting university in any of the following areas of study: anthropology, political science, economics, sociology, history or other relevant social sciences. Graduate students are welcome to participate but will not earn academic credit.
Students without college education can participate in an alternative residency internship program through the Movimiento Nacional de Empresas Recuperadas.
2) An intermediate level of Spanish or the equivalent of two years of college level study is required for all participants.
3) Two evaluation letters to be filled by professors or people you consider relevant are also requested along with the application form.
CURRICULUM
DIVE IN: Language and Cultural Immersion (3 credits)
—Students participate in faculty-facilitated learning activities for three hours during five-days of the7-day language/cultural immersion session. (15-contact hours)
—Excursions and activities occur during the 14 days of our language/cultural immersion weeks. These weeks includes faculty-led visits to a social movement (MTD La Matanza ), a working-class barrio (with Eternautas), a shanty town (Villa 21), as well as movie viewing and discussions combined with attendance of conferences and workshops about art and social activism. (25-contact hours)
—Evening artistic and cultural events: students will attend an array of evening theatrical, musical, and cultural events throughout these 2 weeks. (5-contact hours)
First Week Schedule |
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* COMPLEXITY AND UNITY: Combined Study of Spanish, Economics, and Gender and Social Movements (3 credits)
Seminar: Argentina 1955 to the present
Politics and the Economy
Prof. Pablo A. Pozzi
Argentina: a nation of contradictions? This Seminar will focus on the political and economic aspect of society between 1945 (Juan Domingo Peron's first Presidency) and present day Argentina . The main question we will seek to answer will be: what are the causes of fifty years of political instability in Argentina ? The course combines readings, films, and speakers focusing mainly on an exposure to the virtues and problems of Argentina today. It will focus heavily on class participation. Students will meet with faculty for a 2-hour session, twice a week, for 4 weeks. (16-contact hours)
syllabus
Seminar: The Argentinean Social Movements from a Gender Perspective
Prof. Silvia Delfino
This seminar aims at offering significant historical data and analysis about the ways in which class and gender have been articulated by political struggles against exclusion and repression in Argentina . The discussion on social movements from a gender perspective would propose not only to consider the role of women in political actions but, rather, to trace different historical moments when specific demands against oppression have been produced by associations shaped by the experience of inequality of class and gender. From this point of view gender and sexual identities are produced in concrete historical contexts within specific forms of power and authority. We will propose the information and discussion on different movements of unemployed workers, shanty towns, streets artists, persons in prostitution and neighborhood organizations. The activities will include reading, film watching and guest speakers’ interviews with intensive class participation. Students will meet with faculty for a 2-hour session, twice a week, for 4 weeks. (16-contact hours).
syllabus
Continued Spanish Language Instruction and Usage
Students meet with faculty for a 2-hour session, twice a week, for 4 weeks in order to strengthen their Spanish comprehension, conversational and writing skills. 16-contact hours.
información (en español)
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*THEORY AND PRACTICE AT WORK
—Students spend time in the recovered factories, and study the history, process, organization, and gender issues in Spanish. (30-contact hours). The course is taught by a team of Professors and Graduates from the UBA who have been researching on the recovered factory phenomenon for the past three years, under the supervision of Dr. Trinchero.
syllabus
(en español) |
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FEES AND DATES
Fee : $ 3,000.00 (There is a $50 non-refundable application fee).
Dates: 2007 to be announced
Deadline for applications: 2007 to be announced
Acceptance confirmation: 2007 to be announced
Student letter of confirmation to attend program, plus deposit of $500.00: 2007 to be announced
Final Payment: 2007 to be announced
Fee includes:
—All tuition and fees (8 Carnegie credits)
—All room and board accommodations
—Scheduled program excursions
—Costs associated with day and evening outings
Fee does not include:
—Life and health insurance coverage
—Meals
—Transportation within the City
—Airfare
—Personal Expenses
—Airport exit fee ($ 18.00)
FINANCIAL AID
The best source of financial aid information is a student's home institution. It is the participant's responsibility to understand the requirements and the deadlines of the home institution regarding all financial aid issues.
Students should discuss specific plans with study abroad advisors and financial aid counselors as soon as possible. The home institution financial aid office can tell students what types of aid they will permit them to use for the program, as well as how to transfer financial aid. In many cases it will be possible for students to transfer much or all of their federal (and some state) aid to the program.
Participating students who qualify for US state and/or federal financial aid may generally use this aid to cover the cost of the program, provided that the aid is processed by their US home institution and the credits for the program go toward a degree. However, be aware that policies on federal and state financial aid transfer are set by your home institution. It is your responsibility to secure your own financial aid transfer.
Students who have financial need and/or are not currently enrolled in a higher learning institution are encouraged to participate in an alternative program through an MNER residency internship that is more affordable.
CONTACT US - QUESTIONS WELCOME!
In the United States
Graciela Monteagudo, Coordinator Argentina Autonomista Project, autonomista1@aol.com
802-522-8338 (cell)
In Argentina : Marcelo Dimentstein
aapbuenosaires@yahoo.com.ar
(011-54-11) 4953-2381
Argentina Autonomista
SUMMER ABROAD PROGRAM
APPLICATION FORM (DOC)
HEALTH AND LIABILITY FORMS (RTF)
aapbuenosaires@yahoo.com.ar
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