Last July, I embarked on the reverse of the journey that many students have taken to come to study at the Geneva Graduate Institute: I took a flight to Abya Yala, also known as South America. Captivated by this continent for over five years, I had long dreamed of doing an exchange there. During the application process, I had selected Lima and Bogotá. Life led me to the latter, and it did it so well! This semester, extremely intense, sometimes complicated but always so enriching, has concluded, and was an invaluable experience that has already influenced my academic journey.
Pursuing a Master's in Anthropology and Sociology and being passionate about issues related to migration and gender, Bogota represented an incredible opportunity for me to study and conduct fieldwork for my thesis, which initially focused on the migration of Venezuelan women and their role in the field of sex work. As I progressed with my fieldwork — which consisted in teaching English in a socio-cultural centre in a marginalised area of the capital — the theme somewhat evolved.
Apart from my fieldwork, which I will come back to later, this exchange allowed me to experience what it is like to study on the beautiful campus of the excellent Universidad de los Andes and integrate its student community. Hummingbirds, orchids, and other lush flora and fauna are an integral part of this wonderful site with a sublime panoramic view of Montserrat on one side, and the entire city on the other. And how can I not mention the incredible sports centre ? To be honest, I went to the university almost as often for dance and indoor cycling classes as for anthropology.
The courses, all in Spanish, allowed me to gain a different perspective in the social sciences and to practise the language I learned to love through Gabriel Garcia Márquez in a contemporary and ever-evolving context. One example that comes to mind is from the first class of Geopolitics of Research, where I learned that using the term “third world” is more than normalised here, whereas in Europe, it has been completely cancelled and removed from our vocabulary due to its negative connotation. As trivial as it may sound, it left a strong impression on me.
I met wonderful people during this exchange at UniAndes, particularly through dance classes which facilitated contact with local students. However, what will have impacted me the most is undoubtedly my fieldwork. Being able to interact with the most marginalised population of the city, whether migrants, homeless people, sex workers, recyclers, or trans women for example, through the English classes I taught was an immense privilege and taught me a lot. All the rollos (i.e. people from Bogotá) strongly advised me against going to the neighbourhood of the socio-cultural centre, especially as the centre itself was previously a brothel run by a major mobster. Yet, this is where I met the bravest, most altruistic and sincere people. The Monday and Thursday afternoons spent in this socio-cultural centre , surrounded by students, teachers, and social workers of unparalleled kindness, only reinforced my love for anthropology and ethnography. Emotions, strong objectivity, and privileged exchanges with my research participants represent to me the beauty of this discipline and method. Leaving the field and Colombia as a whole was extremely painful for me, but it also somehow proves the intensity of this experience. And rest assured, I am very happy to return to the Graduate Institute too, which I had actually missed a lot.
Geneva Graduate Institute Exchange Programme
This article was published in Globe #33, the Graduate Institute review.
