Lauder Intercultural Ventures

SOCIAL IMPACT FROM A CHANGING ENVIRONMENT

Mongolia is home to one of today’s few remaining populations of pastoral nomads, a legacy reflected in the vast open landscape and the nation’s music, art, oral traditions, and poetry. This LIV will explore how this nomadic lifestyle is changing and adapting as more Mongolians move to cities, massive new mines bring new wealth and strong protests, and global climate change puts pressure on traditional practices. Activities will include a tour of a local non-profit that works to help build infrastructure resources for ger district residents, a tour of Erdenet, a socialist mine, a countryside excursion to meet herding families, meeting with young Mongolian cultural figures, and a meeting with an advisor to the president of Mongolia on “controversies of development”, from a governmental perspective.

“Participating in the Mongolia LIV was a wonderful opportunity to explore a new culture and to stay connected with the Lauder community after graduation.”

-Frank DeSimone, Class of ’15

This LIV will explore the culture, history and politics of two societies confronting several complex challenges: (1) the turbulent transition from a planned economy to liberal capitalism, which all the countries of Eastern Europe experienced during the 1990s, and (2) the most violent conflict the European continent had witnessed since the end of World War II. Meet with refugees and survivors of wartime atrocities, many of whom still struggle with the trauma they sustained during the 1990s wars. Speak to leaders of non-governmental organizations and local activists to learn more about the challenges facing a region that was at war at a time when other post-socialist states experienced large-scale growth. Students will hear from business owners and executives trying to sustain and expand their businesses in an economically stagnant region where the wounds of the violent conflicts of the 1990s have never fully healed. The group will be able to speak with our commentators about what it was like to work under socialism before 1989, under international sanctions during the 1990s wars and today, when the privatization of formerly state-owned enterprises has largely reached completion. Government representatives and academics from Bosnia and Serbia will detail the difficulties that both states encounter as they try to prevent the “brain drain” of talented young people to the more prosperous states of Northwestern Europe.