Open School of Ethnography and Anthropology

OSEA—The Open School of Ethnography and Anthropology is an independent, non-degree school chartered to develop, sponsor, and conduct educational, exchange, research, and public outreach programs,especially:

• to provide field study abroad, study abroad, service learning, and internship programs that prioritize transcultural exchange and experiential learning;
• to organize and conduct research projects, conferences, and activities in cultural and interdisciplinary anthropology, broadly defined, including community action research, participatory research, and applied anthropology; and,
• to disseminate knowledge and understandings to diverse publics, communities, and specialist academic audiences through publications, museum exhibitions, installations, performances, public outreach, community education, and related exchange activities.

The Mission of OSEA is To provide individuals with first-hand, experiential knowledge, cross-cultural understanding, and appreciation of Indigenous cultures, traditions, and histories; and, to enable greater positive interaction and exchange between peoples of different cultural communities and social worlds.

The Community Institute of Transcultural Exchange is chartered

• To bring anthropology, as well as related fields of cultural studies, into the hands of those that have been considered the primary subjects of study so that these persons and groups may own, control, and use these tools, methods, and knowledge in the pursuit of their pursuits of community well-being, cultural sustainability, and cultural innovation;
• To foment reciprocal educational processes and mutually productive interaction between diverse communities of researchers, students, social groups, and cultures that meet in transcultural encounters;
• To increase the prosperity, well-being, achievement, tranquility, self-determination, and positive valorization of cultural communities that have been forced into political, economic, and sociocultural margins of today’s globally interactive humanity.

OSEA—CITE is particularly focused on questions and contemporary problems related to language revitalization, sustainability, cultural ownership, heritage rights, community health and well-being, the innovation of tradition, and the interconnections between local, national, and transnational communities and social forces.