Challenging Globalism:
Mobile Technologies for Social Responsibility
THE PROGRAM
This course will challenge current understandings of globalism through practical encounters on a local level that deal with messy, complicated issues of western influence. As leaders in emerging mobile technologies, Kenyan organizations have been at the forefront of pushing boundaries and demonstrating the way small-scale citizen movements can lead to large-scale social change. As a result, this course will be sited in Kenya in orde
r to disrupt students expectations of how global leadership works and to unpack in a meaningful way the role of the individual in addressing these global-local paradigms.
THE LOCATION
The program will travel between Nairobi, Huruma, Naivasha, and Mara-Naboisho Conservancy, Kenya.
THE HIGHLIGHTS
• Guest lectures by technology experts in the field
• Volunteering in Maasai Mara – using satellite tracking, students will conduct research
on spatial dynamics and social ecology of big cats
• Travel into the Great Rift Valley
• Art and media collaboration and performance with Slumcode (local peers from Huruma)
THE ACCOMMODATIONS
Students will be in shared accommodations in apartment or dormitory housing at each location.
HOW TO APPLY:
Go to UMD’s Education Abroad, and follow the directions there.
Priority Deadline for short-term programs is September 1st, 2013.
Programs may fill by this date and be closed.
THE PROGRAM DIRECTORS
Krista Caballero is the Associate Director of the Digital Cultures and Creativity Program in the Honors College. As an interdisciplinary artist, her work unpacks cultural myths relating to the “American” West, technology, gendered land use, and ideas of the sublime. Her current project, Mapping Meaning, provides a forum for artists, scientists and scholars to engage topics of the environment through interdisciplinary dialogue and exchange. She received her M.F.A. from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts / Tufts University and has exhibited both nationally and internationally.
Jarah Moesch is an experimental artist-scholar who explores (computer) code, networks, and protocols to re-think issues of power and control within designed systems. Jarah holds an MFA in Integrated Media Art from Hunter College, and is currently a doctoral student in American Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park. Jarah has been a graduate assistant for DCC since 2010.
The Requirements
Applicants must be in good academic standing. Students must have completed HDCC105 or by permission for Honors College students. This program is specifically for those undergraduate students who wish to explore emerging technologies and their impact on the world. The ideal student will be curious, open and willing to reconsider current paradigms through the intersections of digital cultures, technology, creativity, and social responsibility.