More Than Just Fun!

Study Abroad Expands Horizons and Career Opportunities

By Malik Russell

Fulbright-MtvU Scholar studies Panamanian Spanish Reggae Music and Afro-Panamanian Identity

If we depend solely on the perspective of Hollywood, often travel abroad by students represents merely a vehicle into international versions of spring break-type good times. Yet in reality, study abroad programs and travel outside national borders can not only result in maturity, personal growth and expanded horizons, but also in career opportunities.

For Larnies Bowen (right), a New York University graduate from Washington, D.C., travel abroad has likely resulted in all of the above. Larnies traveled to Buenos Aires as part of an NYU travel course during her junior year and made personal connections that would open the doors to a Fulbright-MtvU scholarship.

While in Argentina, Larnies came across two NYU graduates who were completing research for their own Fulbright scholarships. Their stories and insight opened her eyes and sparked her own interest in becoming a Fulbright Scholar. 

“That summer, I started formulating my proposal to conduct independent research on Panamanian Spanish Reggae music and Afro-Panamanian identity,” said Larnies. “However, I was unable to meet the fall deadline for the 2007-08 Fulbright competition.  When I saw the announcement for the new Fulbright-MtvU fellowships on the Fulbright Web site, I decided to apply because I knew that an affiliation with MtvU would be an excellent way for me to disseminate the findings of my research on a large and important demographic: American college students.”

As the old adage goes, “persistence overcomes resistance,” and in June of 2007, Larnies joined three other college students from Temple, Harvard, and Georgetown as the initial recipients of the Fulbright-MtvU Fellowships.

The winners were chosen through a multi-layered merit-based selection process in which panels of academic leaders and experts reviewed applicants. The final candidates were then reviewed and nominated by music icons such as Fiona Apple, James Mercer of the Shins, Common, and Perry Farrell of the Satellite Party with the final choices made by the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board.

Created through a partnership with the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and MtvU, a 24-hour television network for college students, the fellowship will allow students to conduct year-long research on a project of their design with a focus on some aspect of international music culture. They’ll share their experiences via pod casts, reports, blogs and video shown on MtvU.

Larnies’ project will focus on examining the roots of Panamanian Reggae and bringing attention to its role in the development of Reggaeton as well as its impact on the construction of Afro-Latin identity which has often gone ignored, despite the more than 130 million Afro-Latins in Latin America.

Her research will include some typical aspects of study, but she’ll also spend a good amount of time in the Panamanian community building relationships with reggaeseros (Spanish Reggae musicians) and other Afro-Panamanians.

“I will present and interpret their words and music in the hopes of providing an entryway into their world for people outside of their community and culture. I look forward to forging relationships with people who are seemingly very different from myself and overcoming these differences so that interviewees feel comfortable sharing details about themselves and their lives.”

Larnies points out that despite the huge cultural, social and political contributions of Afro-Latins in Latin America, they have more often than not mirrored Ralph Ellison’s “Invisible Man,” due to historical and current marginalization or exclusion.  

“In fact, much of what we consider quintessentially “Latin” (Salsa, Merengue, Santeria, etc.) has tangible African roots.  Through my study of a Black community in Panama, I hope to convey the diversity of the African Diaspora and broaden my people’s notions of “Blackness.”

She plans on completing the 10-month project with the production of an audio/visual history of Spanish Reggae DVD for use in Panamanian Schools and community organizations.  Combining video-clips, music, and photos the DVD “will provide a platform for Afro-Panamanians to explain the development and significance of Spanish Reggae music for their culture, community, and nation in their own words.”

Her project appears a natural continuation of her studies at NYU, where she studied the history and politics behind the creation of national identity in the Caribbean and Latin America. She looked at identity in such places as Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and Cuba.

In many instances, her project as well as education appears to have begun early as the daughter of an African-American mother and Jamaican father. She was exposed early on to artists such as Bob Marley, Gregory Isaacs and Afro-Caribbean culture.

The fellowship will serve as a springboard into other career goals that Larnies plans on accomplishing including the utilization of her ethnographic research to write an academic book on Afro-Panamanians and their culture. She also plans on producing a feature-length documentary film on West Indian presence in Panama and the origins of Spanish Reggae Music.

Her goals don’t stop there.

“I am also planning to complete graduate studies and found a magazine that positively and accurately presents the history, cultures, and politics of African-descended peoples.  I am frustrated with the abundance of negative images of Black people in mainstream American media.  My magazine would serve as an alternative and counter to such narrow depictions of people of African descent.”

For information on the Fulbright-MtvU Fellowship and other programs visit http://exchanges.state.gov/