On Tuesday night, Frances Vavrus spoke to a small audience in the college of education building.
Third-year Spanish student Preston Lane mentioned before the talk that he was there to learn about the culture and education of a different country.
“I think it will be interesting to hear about education in a country that isn’t America, because I’m from Paraguay. I was born and raised there, so it will be interesting to hear about this,” Lane said.
Vavrus is a professor in the Comparative and International Development Education program and is co-director of the Interdisciplinary Center for the Study of Global Change at the University of Minnesota. For 12 years, she conducted ethnographic research in the Kilimanjaro region of Tanzania.
The talk began by introducing this longitudinal ethnographic and survey research, which began in 2000 and concluded in 2012, focusing on the Old Moshi kingdom. Vavrus also talked about her work with the college of education at Mwenge Catholic University in Moshi, Tanzania.
“I’ve been to Tanzania off and on for 25 years as the result of an ongoing research project I’m involved with there,” Vavrus said. “I go back every summer to work with (the) college of education that prepares high school teachers.”
Vavrus spent a great deal of her discussion talking about the power of topography. She explained the conceptions of space in comparative education, using Tanzania as an ongoing example.
“There are critical scholars in my field who want us to attend more to how place matters in theory and particularly theory of global change,” Vavrus said.
Vavrus touched on Lefebvre’s theory of space, a critical part of her study. She elaborated on how this theory applies to space in various parts of Tanzania. Her research found that electricity in homes and the distance from the village to the schools play a large roll in the students’ success.
To end the lecture, Vavrus quoted anthropologist M.C. Rodman: “Places are not inert containers. They are politicized, culturally relative, historically specific, local and multiple constructions."
Graduate students, undergraduate students and faculty alike occupied the room in which Vavrus presented.
“I came here with an open mind, excited to hear what she had to say,” foundations of education doctoral student Bryanna Nelson said.