UNBC + Rights Action Field School to Guatemala, May 2025
This Fiield School is for UNBC students, as well as students from other universities.
We encourage professors and educators to share this information with interested folks.
Professor Catherine Nolin and Grahame Russell (Rights Action), co-leaders of the field school, have worked together since 2004 to organize and facilitate these experiential learning opportunities in Guatemala. They co-edited (and co-wrote several sections) of the book TESTIMONIO: Canadian Mining in the Aftermath of Genocides in Guatemala (Between The Lines, 2021).
More info
Dr. Catherine Nolin provides overview of UNBC Geography + Rights Action field school, planned for May 2025: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIB4j4Fow88
2-minute mini-film about 2023 field school: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/7MWlRxvajeo
Questions
Professor Catherine Nolin, catherine.nolin@unbc.ca
Work / Trip Plan
Week 1
The first week of the course takes place at the UNBC campus in Prince George in late April and early May 2025. Students will prepare for this intense week of classes by reading material made available one month before the course commences. During the UNBC-based seminars we will discuss both theoretical issues of power and human rights as well as specific historical and contemporary aspects of Guatemala's violent past and present. Pre-reading and course work will help to prepare you for an intense field school experience in Guatemala.
Weeks 2 and 3
Weeks two and three take place in Guatemala. Grahame Russell of Rights Action will facilitate all aspects of our time in Guatemala including set-up, guiding, translation, transportation, and so forth. All students will return to Antigua for a final day of reflection, discussion, and analysis of our various experiences. The final form and content of the field school will be worked out in consultation with Rights Action, participating students, and Dr. Nolin.
Over the course of approximately 14 full days in Guatemala, participants will meet with Guatemalans and some North Americans working for human rights and the environment. The group will travel (by rented van) to and spend nights in rural communities seeking justice for environmental and health harms caused by North American mining companies; to the coffee-growing regions of the country to meet with indigenous organizations working for Fair Trade and equitable trade arrangements; communities resisting forced eviction from their ancestral lands to make way for African palm 'for export'; meet with people working for the rights of sweat-shop (maquiladora) workers; and human rights organizations & the Guatemalan Forensic Anthropology Foundation who work to clarify past violence, historical memory and justice. (Closer to the actual dates, Nolin & Russell will set out a detailed 14-day itinerary.)
Grahame Russell
Grahame Russell is a non-practising lawyer, author, adjunct professor at UNBC, and, since 1995, director of Rights Action. Rights Action funds community-controlled development, environmental, land, human rights and justice defense projects in Guatemala and Honduras; and carries out education and activism work in the USA and Canada related to global human rights, environmental and development issues.
Catherine Nolin
Dr. Catherine Nolin is a Professor of Geography and has long-standing interests in issues of Maya refugee movement (particularly to Canada), Guatemalan survival migration, and critical development studies related to resistance to Canadian mining operations in Guatemala. Catherine and Grahame have organized and facilitated nine field schools to Guatemala in 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010 (plus a graduate student delegation in August 2010), 2012, 2014, 2018, and 2023.
Required courses
Undergraduate courses:
GEOG 333 – Geography Field School
GEOG 426 – Geographies of Culture, Rights and Power
Graduate courses:
NRES 763 – Geography Field School
GEOG 626 – Geographies of Culture, Rights and Power
Optional course:
Independent study (arranged with your home program taken concurrently or immediately after the field school)