Applying Ethical Frameworks to Experiential Learning in the Field

In July 2023, Zev Cossin (Anthropology) led a group of AU students to Cayambe, Ecuador for a fieldwork course in Community-Based Research Methods and Anthropology. The following is a conversational reflection between Dr. Cossin and Leticia Soares, a student in the fieldwork course, on the challenges and opportunities of directly involving undergraduate students in ongoing collaborative research methods. Through our reflections, we discuss the importance of fully integrating students into collaborative research methods. Despite key challenges, doing so helps train a new generation of ethically oriented social scientists.

Leticia:

In reflecting on our work in Ecuador, I think back to my first visit to “Quitoloma.” New to the country, new to the altitude, I trek my way up a mountain covered in grasses longer than my legs. I scramble over rocks at the peak and map out the remains of ancient habitation, all while wondering what in the world I was doing there. We had been told the site was an Inca fortress used to take over the region around 1500 C.E.—a few decades prior to Spanish arrival. Yet, the longer I spent trying to understand that narrative, the more I wondered: What other stories and experiences might be buried in that landscape? Our excursion was led by American anthropologists; I wondered what role the local people played in their research, if at all. Who controlled the narrative of the site? Who benefitted from this work? Most importantly, I was left wondering what role I had in a field with a deep history of colonial practices and extractive research methods.

Figure 1. The site of Quitoloma, Ecuador. Habitation structures (ca. 1500) are visible in the foreground. Agricultural fields reach higher up into the high altitude “paramo” ecosystem in the background. Photo by Zev Cossin.

Zev:

I, too, think back to that day at Quitoloma. As one of those American anthropologists leading a group of students, I had been there many times, and it has become a place of intense emotions for me: the cold, thin air, indescribable views of the valleys below, the quick surges of rain clouds and intense wind gusts that overtake you without warning—these are just the physical triggers. But the view from the site also looks out upon the setting of over 500 years of resistance to colonial forces by local families.

First, local communities put up fierce resistance to an Inca incursion around 1500 C.E. After finally succumbing to the expanding Inca empire, just a generation later, local families found themselves in a new battle against Spanish colonization. The Spanish introduced new systems of land tenure and the region became dominated by the hacienda system that ensnared local Indigenous families in violent forms of debt peonage. And today, the export flower industry is the newest actor, buying up land and employing descendants of those hacienda laborers to cultivate beautiful roses and cut-flowers to sell to consumers like us, in Washington, DC.

Figure 2. Bouquets of flowers at the end of a production line at a flower plantation we visited in Cayambe, Ecuador. Photo by Zev Cossin.

That day at Quitoloma was the first time I had gone with students from American University, and I wondered what they were feeling and seeing as we sat there. Students like Leticia, many of whom were anthropology majors, were there for a field course in Anthropology and Community-Based Research Methods. This was an experiential learning course, where students would participate in actual, ongoing research to understand how centuries of colonial histories have shaped contemporary life in the region and to consider what our connection is as flower consumers in the global north. This season was going to be different, because instead of going in with a fully set research agenda, we would wait to consult and assist our community partners in the ways that they desired. I planned to experiment with a research approach known as “Restorative History” being developed at places like the National Museum of American History (NMAH), discussed further below.

But traveling to Ecuador with a group of students, without a detailed plan and schedule for what we would do on a daily basis, was risky, to say the least.

Leticia:

As an Anthropology major and Legal Studies minor, I was interested in the application of legal frameworks to cultural heritage. This subject was relevant to the fieldwork course as the framework of restorative history draws on principles of restorative justice. In legal theory, restorative justice is a practice that prioritizes community involvement and repairing harm done, rather than punishment and retribution. By bringing together the affected parties, restorative justice aims to acknowledge and identify the harm caused by an offender’s actions and take steps to remedy that harm (Development Services Group, Inc. 2010). Restorative justice prioritizes the needs of the victim, who is often overlooked in Western criminal justice systems. Ultimately, this approach is only successful when both parties are willing to come to the table and collaborate.

So, how can this framework be applied to historical studies and cultural heritage? The Center for Restorative History at NMAH outlines four pillars of restorative history: 1) make history a practical tool for justice; 2) privilege community knowledge to expose truths silenced in historical narratives; 3) create partnerships based on mutual capacity building; and 4) confront legacies of injustice that their institutions have perpetuated. These pillars are meant to facilitate more ethical and collaborative forms of research within communities.

Zev and Leticia:

Given this framework, we set out to establish a month-long program in collaboration with the Indigenous community of Chumillos Central, the custodians of the Quitoloma site and a community with whom the archaeology project had worked to excavate the site many years ago. Initially, we met as a small group with community leaders, “breaking bread,” to discuss how we could best support this community, with the limited time frame of a three-week field school. The Chumillos leaders were prepared with quite a few ideas for us that would contribute to their long-term goal of bringing more visitors to Quitoloma and opportunities for local families. Their five main ideas were:

• to create physical signage to help tourists navigate the archaeological site;
• to create a basic English vocabulary sheet with a pronunciation guide to help them communicate with foreign visitors;
• to establish the online presence and outreach of Quitoloma;
• to create informational museum guidebooks that could be utilized by both the museum workers and visitors; and
• to lead a short summer school (cursos vacacionales) for the local children that would focus on teaching English and archaeology.

In short, the community sought greater control over their ancestral site, equipped with some of the historical knowledge that we could communicate in our role as anthropologists. They sought to empower themselves to share their own histories with visitors and tourists, in ways that benefited their community. Over the next three weeks, our large group of students worked to create the materials requested by the community. In the meantime, we participated in communal farmwork parties, held a sleepover at Chumillos with an exchange of food and music, and designed summer camp activities for kids that had us all running around, painting, and singing in English and Spanish.

Figure 3. Students and community members work together to install new signage at the site of Quitoloma. Photo by Zev Cossin.

Zev:

Ultimately, we did little “archaeology,” at least the archaeology described in textbooks. Prior to arriving in Ecuador, I had identified several projects to push forward the archaeological process, including artifact processing, digitization of artifacts, and potential small-scale archaeological excavations. But these were secondary concerns for our community partners. Though it was risky to embark on a research program with students, with little idea of what precisely we would do once there, I think this sort of fear and anxiety is a central dimension of initiating a Restorative History project. Step 1 is to lose control over the research process to better accommodate a broader set of goals and interests shared by our community partners from the start.

If we are to train a new generation of social scientists who can push these frameworks even further, our experiential learning and field research must also include students in that process to more fully understand both the challenges and opportunities.

As professors, we automatically look to course syllabi as guiding documents and frameworks of the schedule and tasks ahead. Losing that sort of predictability is scary, but, I think, also essential to working toward co-production of knowledge and expertise. It is often easy to talk about ethical research frameworks in the classroom, but if we are to train a new generation of social scientists who can push these frameworks even further, our experiential learning and field research must also include students in that process to more fully understand both the challenges and opportunities. While it might make us vulnerable to unpredictability, students can truly experience the process of working toward “restorative” histories and mutual capacity through our work and partnerships. This approach disrupts traditional academic hierarchies in two ways, by instilling co-creation both with the community and with students.

Leticia:

Archaeological field schools are prime laboratories not only to promote critical examination of harmful research practices but also to train new generations of archaeologists in ethical, community-based methods.

This “archaeological” field school challenged my perceptions of what archaeology is and what it can be. Instead of digging for artifacts, I was picking beans, planning summer school activities, and dancing with the local community. I was thrilled to learn that community-engaged work often means being willing to break with traditional ideas of archaeology and research to privilege alternative forms of knowledge and expertise. While I cannot claim that I left Ecuador with all of my questions answered, in some ways I left with a greater sense of belonging in the field. I feel more comfortable that emerging research frameworks such as restorative history, community-based participatory research, and “heart-centered archaeology” (Supernant et al. 2020), among others, can serve as avenues to empower both students and communities. By partaking in this fieldwork course, I learned that archaeological field schools are prime laboratories not only to promote critical examination of harmful research practices but also to train new generations of archaeologists in ethical, community-based methods.

Takeaways (Leticia and Zev):

The benefits of including students as central participants in alternative, ethical research frameworks are numerous, and they can translate across disciplines. For this work to succeed, it is important to embrace uncertainty as researchers and professors, despite the challenges of losing some of the control. Such projects can upend traditional academic hierarchies by empowering communities and students to step in with new, creative, and productive ideas and outcomes. We invite you to consider how these lessons might reshape research in your own fields!

Author Profiles

Zev Cossin is a Professorial Lecturer in the Department of Anthropology at American University. As an environmental anthropologist and archaeologist, his research explores the social and ecological consequences of colonialism in the Americas and how those histories shape life today.

Leticia Soares graduated in Spring 2025 from American University with a degree in Anthropology and a minor in Legal Studies. She is interested in legal anthropology and researched legal aid service providers in Washington, DC for her senior capstone.

References

Development Services Group, Inc. (2010). Restorative justice. Literature review. Washington, D.C.: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.

NMAH (n.d.). Restorative history [explained]. National Museum of American History, Smithsonian.

Supernant, K., Baxter, J. E, Lyons, N., Atalay, S. (Eds.). (2020). Archaeologies of the heart. Springer.