EC EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN SUMMER PROGRAMS: Boarding at the Border

Thursday, June 27, 2019

Boarding at the Border

Looking left and seeing a border wall strewn with barbed wire every time I walked out the front door made the strife caused by hard borders readily apparent. Living outside of Boston, the only time “borders” have effected my daily life in a meaningful way is avoiding sales taxes in New Hampshire, or paying $0.05 for shopping bags when I cross into Cambridge. This is obviously in stark contrast to homes divided in two, and armed guards sitting in observation towers. Outside of the southwest, hard borders are an abstract concept for many Americans. Staying in Nicosia has underlined for me the importance of freedom of movement, and the real impact of walls.

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EC Eastern Security Studies Program

In the summer of 2011, as the "Arab Spring" was unfolding and the "Eurozone Crisis" was entering its second year, the Emmanuel College Eastern Mediterranean Security Studies Program was established in Crete, as a way to make the location the classroom. Beyond the grand theoretical, historical and political understanding that can be achieved through reading and classroom discussion and exchange, a more immediate, intimate and truer appreciation of the complexities can only achieved by experiencing the cultures, languages of personal interaction.

Since 2012 students have been able to combine an intensive curricular study, with the experience of immersion and living in a local setting. The geopolitical and geoeconomic forces that have acted in the region for centuries, can be identified in the classroom, but they can only be understood by being there. This year's EC EMSS Program will add a fourth week of study, experience and exploration and will also travel to the islands of Rhodes, and Cyprus. In Rhodes we will be partnering with the Prefecture of Southern Aegean and the Aegean University, while in Cyprus we will be hosted by the University of Nicosia.