Fast FactsName: Marianinna Villavicencio
Place of Birth: Guatemala City University: University of Notre Dame, IN Major: Anthropology Minors: Business Economics, European Studies |
Why I chose to do this project: As someone who grew up in Guatemala and witnessed the lack of awareness surrounding the country’s ethnic diversity, I hope to contribute to the development of policies by providing insight into quotidian inter-ethnic relations and cultural identities. I am intrigued by the paradox presented by the notion of neoliberal multiculturalism and am concerned that it has not received enough attention within the country, especially outside of academia. I am troubled by this disregard for deeper dialogue regarding ethnic issues because, combined with the growing social inequality in Guatemala, the country is in a state that is socially and economically unsustainable in the long run. I am very eager to see a change and so ensure that we do not return to the conditions that brought about our bloody, 36-year civil war.
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The Reverse Culture Shock of a Native Anthropologist
Unlike most Notre Dame students who go abroad for service, fieldwork or study abroad programs, my research this summer took place in my own country. This is not to say that I never felt uncomfortable or “out of my element” during my fieldwork, for I was constantly experiencing aspects and situations in Guatemala City that were undeniably outside of the life and routine I had created for myself in the past twenty-one years. However distinct and—to a certain degree—“shocking” these episodes were, they never provided one distinct opportunity to experience reverse culture shock. There was no point when I got off a plane and only to be amazed by the cleanliness, consumerist first-world airport in which I had landed (Holm 1990; class discussion).
Reentering Home
The process of “readjusting, reacculturating, and reassimilating” into my home culture (Gaw 2000) was never a separate process during my research, rather, I was constantly shifting from the novel to the familiar (usually on a day to day basis). That first month of being back in Guatemala I was trying to get used to switching from my aspiring anthropologist persona to my Guatemala City youth persona. The hardest part of re-entering my home environment was always to accept that the reality of what I was experiencing during my research was a part of the reality I lived in my daily life. Acknowledging that the city I was experiencing this summer was a more real version of the Guatemala I had thought to know was the hardest part of this constant “reassimilating” cycle I was putting myself through.
After a couple of weeks of experiencing this disconcerting dissonance, I realized that I felt more at ease with my identity as an anthropology student who was conducting research and experiencing new aspects of daily life in Guatemala City. At that moment I stopped trying to separate my two personas and I decided to be both of them at once. I realized, as Greenough did that “anthropological thoughts and questions do make their way, italicized, into my” everyday-Guatemalan-life “mental compartment” (2006). This, in turn, made me feel more comfortable with the research I was doing and more often than not, made it impossible to discern which of my experiences this summer were research and which were part of my daily routine.
Returning Abroad
Despite having overcome that initial cycle of constant culture shock and reverse culture shock, I was unprepared for the difficulties I would face when in my reentry into Notre Dame. In The Intercultural Sojourn as the Hero’s Journey, Hart speaks of the hero’s refusal to return; the feeling that our “new found world is far more attractive than the old” (year?). This sentiment, added to the facts that this was the longest period of time I had spent home since leaving for college and that during the last month, my research gained strong momentum—in terms of interviews and networking—left me completely unprepared to return to Notre Dame. This was the moment when I most experienced the staple culture and reverse culture shock symptoms and in a way this made sense since the university is my “home away from home.”
English felt strange on my tongue and some of my friends remarked my accent was more noticeable. The cars seemed too large and the lack of disorder and clutter unsettled me. I was terrified at the thought of having to abide once again by a set of automated, automatic rules with barely any space for human error. I know that most of that anxiety is in my head, but my mind has created a strict distinction between the vague, bendable rules and imprecise form of law enforcement in Guatemala, and the no-nonsense strictness of US rules and regulations. A feeling that is reinforced every time I travel between the two countries and must undergo the unfriendly and mechanized process that is border control, immigration and customs.
Mainly though, when I left Guatemala, I was not ready to loose not just the experiences of the past summer, but also the feeling that I was somehow part of something larger; that through my research I was able to transcend multiple identity barriers and befriend people of entirely different backgrounds and ideologies. The first days of being back I was desperately clinging to these feelings in fear that if I let myself fall back into my old routine as an ND student, I would somehow loose the part of myself that had developed this summer. Worse of all was the feeling that I could not even preserve my experiences through storytelling because most of those I shared my ideas with kept “missing the point” (Holm 1990). Similarly, there was no profoundness in these moments seeing as I was asked “all the usual questions, and I [kept] giving all the usual answers” (Simon 2006). It was difficult to communicate how upon my return to the university, rather than become “disenchanted” or have an identity crisis as some scholars suggest (Gaw 2000), I felt my national pride and identity have been reaffirmed and how I am no longer content to fall back into “normality.”
Reentering Home
The process of “readjusting, reacculturating, and reassimilating” into my home culture (Gaw 2000) was never a separate process during my research, rather, I was constantly shifting from the novel to the familiar (usually on a day to day basis). That first month of being back in Guatemala I was trying to get used to switching from my aspiring anthropologist persona to my Guatemala City youth persona. The hardest part of re-entering my home environment was always to accept that the reality of what I was experiencing during my research was a part of the reality I lived in my daily life. Acknowledging that the city I was experiencing this summer was a more real version of the Guatemala I had thought to know was the hardest part of this constant “reassimilating” cycle I was putting myself through.
After a couple of weeks of experiencing this disconcerting dissonance, I realized that I felt more at ease with my identity as an anthropology student who was conducting research and experiencing new aspects of daily life in Guatemala City. At that moment I stopped trying to separate my two personas and I decided to be both of them at once. I realized, as Greenough did that “anthropological thoughts and questions do make their way, italicized, into my” everyday-Guatemalan-life “mental compartment” (2006). This, in turn, made me feel more comfortable with the research I was doing and more often than not, made it impossible to discern which of my experiences this summer were research and which were part of my daily routine.
Returning Abroad
Despite having overcome that initial cycle of constant culture shock and reverse culture shock, I was unprepared for the difficulties I would face when in my reentry into Notre Dame. In The Intercultural Sojourn as the Hero’s Journey, Hart speaks of the hero’s refusal to return; the feeling that our “new found world is far more attractive than the old” (year?). This sentiment, added to the facts that this was the longest period of time I had spent home since leaving for college and that during the last month, my research gained strong momentum—in terms of interviews and networking—left me completely unprepared to return to Notre Dame. This was the moment when I most experienced the staple culture and reverse culture shock symptoms and in a way this made sense since the university is my “home away from home.”
English felt strange on my tongue and some of my friends remarked my accent was more noticeable. The cars seemed too large and the lack of disorder and clutter unsettled me. I was terrified at the thought of having to abide once again by a set of automated, automatic rules with barely any space for human error. I know that most of that anxiety is in my head, but my mind has created a strict distinction between the vague, bendable rules and imprecise form of law enforcement in Guatemala, and the no-nonsense strictness of US rules and regulations. A feeling that is reinforced every time I travel between the two countries and must undergo the unfriendly and mechanized process that is border control, immigration and customs.
Mainly though, when I left Guatemala, I was not ready to loose not just the experiences of the past summer, but also the feeling that I was somehow part of something larger; that through my research I was able to transcend multiple identity barriers and befriend people of entirely different backgrounds and ideologies. The first days of being back I was desperately clinging to these feelings in fear that if I let myself fall back into my old routine as an ND student, I would somehow loose the part of myself that had developed this summer. Worse of all was the feeling that I could not even preserve my experiences through storytelling because most of those I shared my ideas with kept “missing the point” (Holm 1990). Similarly, there was no profoundness in these moments seeing as I was asked “all the usual questions, and I [kept] giving all the usual answers” (Simon 2006). It was difficult to communicate how upon my return to the university, rather than become “disenchanted” or have an identity crisis as some scholars suggest (Gaw 2000), I felt my national pride and identity have been reaffirmed and how I am no longer content to fall back into “normality.”