News From the Field: Student Research Grants | Latin American Studies

News From the Field: Student Research Grants

Tyler Boone, PhD candidate in Political Science

I used my $1,000 LASP Travel Grant to do an election observation mission in El Salvador during their elections for President in 2014. I completed an election observation mission as well as had informal conversations with ordinary Salvadorans on the relationships they had with their political parties in terms of whether there was promises of material rewards in exchange for votes. I will be using this experience to inform a dissertation prospectus that I hope to have accepted in the 2014-2015 academic year.

Oya Yegen, PhD candidate in Political Science

Oya Yegen (left) and Carlos Carmona Santander (right), a member of Chile’s Constitutional Court.

LASP Graduate Student award has provided me the necessary financial support to complete my fieldwork in Chile. The funding provided me the opportunity to make several trips to Chilean Congress in Valparaiso where I conducted interviews with deputies and met with constitutional law and political science professors and members of the Chilean judiciary around Santiago. The interviews gave me insight on how the 2005 constitutional amendments took place and informed me about the prospect of further amendments and possibly a new constitution. Overall, the award helped me significantly with my dissertation fieldwork.

Statement on Diversity and Inclusion

The Center for Latin American Studies at Boston University is proud of BU’s history of diversity and inclusion. BU’s founders opened the University’s doors to all students without regard to religion, race, or gender, and building and sustaining a vibrant community of scholars, students, and staff remains essential to its mission of contributing to and preparing students to thrive in, an increasingly interconnected world.

Success in a competitive, global milieu depends upon our ongoing commitment to welcome and engage the wisdom, creativity, and aspirations of all peoples and the Center for Latin American Studies is vital to the University’s mission of preparing global citizens. We forge concrete initiatives to integrate faculty and students across the university in the promotion of antiracism, diversity, and inclusion from a Latin American Studies perspective. Through our in-depth and interdisciplinary academic programs, as well as through a rich array of talks, lectures, round-table discussions, conferences, and other educational and cultural events, we assist the University in its efforts to create environments for learning, working, and living that are enriched by racial, ethnic, and cultural diversity.

At the Center for Latin American Studies, we believe in and practice respect for individual differences in life experience, sexual orientation, and religious belief, and we aspire to be free of intellectual parochialism, barriers to access, and ethnocentrism. We appreciate and deeply value the contributions and talents of every member of the Boston University community and invite you to learn more about us.