Community-Based Field Research and Intercultural Student Experiences: Tropical Rainforest Experiential Learning in the Peruvian Amazon

This study examines field courses and student research carried out in the Peruvian Amazon with the direct guidance, participation and assistance of local rainforest communities. These intercultural summer field trips and research experiences provided experiential learning for both university students and local residents as they studied forest resource use and abundance, and socioeconomic conditions in the traditional lands of rainforest communities. While local residents possessed an intricate and detailed understanding of natural resources and their uses, university students from the United States assisted in the mapping and quantitative inventories of key resources. The results were different, important shared experiences between students and community members of vastly different cultures and levels of education. At the same time, new levels of understanding about resource abundance and diversity, the economic value of different forests and agroforestry systems, and local concerns and opinions about diverse social and ecological issues, including education, were revealed in impressive ways through the interactive processes, observations and reflections during the summer field trips. The challenges students encountered in adapting to local physical and cultural environments while exploring different forests and applying research methods in Peru are discussed here, along with the many successes, happy moments, and pleasant surprises. Student experiences and their perspectives on gaining cultural competence and research experience with geographic fieldwork in an isolated and underdeveloped region of the world are discussed and compared in the study. Knowledge gained through these experiences and the use of GIS in the field provide important insights and pointers for university faculty and students planning to engage in similar collaborative research endeavors in tropical forest environments.