Fieldwork
in
Honduras
Slide Show
Maps of Region
Links to Honduras
& Related Sites
Publications
Curriculum Vitae
El Cajon Data
Copán Valley
Power Point Presentations
(in English and en español)
Anthropology Dept
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Welcome to Bill
Loker's web site. The idea behind this site is to give you an idea
of the kind of anthropological research I do and provide some links
and ideas to follow-up if you are interested. The site has images and
some explanatory text that explain what I have been up to lately. You
can go straight to the images if you want by clicking on the topics
to the left. If you want some background, read on. . . . . . .
El
Cajon Research
I have been working
in the same area of rural Honduras off and on since 1981. I call this
area the "El Cajon region," though no one who lives there calls it that.
The area is in the immediate vicinity of the resorvoir created by the
El Cajon dam, the largest hydroelectric dam in Central America and one
of the ten highest dams in the world. The dam was completed in 1984,
so I have some before and after experience in the region. I was there
when the dam closed and began flooding people out in 1984, then returned
ten years later in 1994 to begin studying how the dam had affected life
in the area around the reservoir. I have been back to the area in 1997
(for six weeks) and in 1998 (for six months). What started out as a
"social impact" study, has now broadened to include rural social and
economic change in general, using a political ecology framework. If
you want to know what that means, read on . . . . . .
Enter
El Cajon slide show 
Copán
Valley Research
My
current research (2000-present) is focused on contemporary environmental
change in the Copán Valley of Honduras. The research is examining
several inter-related trends and processes affecting the environment
in the region: the rise and fall of flue-cured tobacco in the region;
the evolution of a local ethnopolitical movement (Consejo Nacional
Maya Chortí de Honduras, CONIMCHH); the spread of coffee production
in the region and attempts by local farmers to enter the Fair Trade
and organic markets, and; the rising importance of tourism in the
Valley. The research combines standard anthropological methods; formal
and informal interviews, participant observation, documentary sources,
plus the incorporation of time series arial photography and satellite
imagery to document patterns of land cover and land cover change.
Publications of this research are beginning to appear (as of 2004),
but for a priliminary look at the research results, consult the various
power point presentations on this web site. This research has been
supported by CSU, Chico, the National Geographic Society, Asociación
Copán and the Instituto Hondureño de Antropología
e Historia.
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