MA in Intercultural Service, Leadership, and Management
Hide and Seekexplores Peace Corps’ role in Panama and details the unique opportunities that Peace Corps Volunteers have to integrate and experience remote communities of the Indigenous tribe known as the Ngäbe Bugle. The main research question of this paper is derived from the challenges that Volunteers in Panama commonly face upon arriving to their communities and presenting themselves to their community members. I will discuss how Volunteers process the cultural differences they experience in their communities, how they respond to them, and whether they choose to conceal or reveal parts of their social identities to their community members. Along with the discussion of my own experiences in Panama, I conducted six qualitative interviews with Volunteers who served in Ngäbe communities from 2015 to 2017. The main theory I use to analyze data is M. Bennett’s Developmental Model for Intercultural Sensitivity, which helps designate how Volunteers processed cultural differences and integrated into their host communities.
Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Ethnicity in Communication | International and Intercultural Communication | Latin American Studies | Social and Cultural Anthropology
Sweeney, Sara, "Hide and Seek: How and why Peace Corps Panama Volunteers conceal and reveal parts of their social identities and perceived impacts on their cultural integration" (2018). Capstone Collection. 3125.