Cultural Anthropology professor Christine Folch and student Andrew McCallum (T’24) discuss the value of friendship and camaraderie in research, how forgotten stories can be uncovered in archival records, and the cultural significance of South America’s most popular beverage, yerba mate — whose North American cousin hides in plain sight on Duke’s campus.
Related links:
The Book of Yerba Mate: A Stimulating History
Archives of Terror/ Archivos del Terror
Deans’ Summer Research Fellowship
Welcome to Duets, a podcast exploring the human side of research collaborations between Duke faculty and undergraduate students.
Today we're joined by faculty member Christine Folch and student Andrew McCallum, whose collaborative research on the political and cultural history of Paraguay is grounded in archival-based storytelling.
Christine: My name is Christine Folch. I'm an Associate Professor in the Department of Cultural Anthropology. I work on Latin America, nature, environment, energy, history, food. And I also work a lot on politics and justice.
Andrew: My name is Andrew McCallum. I have a double major in both Cultural Anthropology and English. What draws me to both those subjects is a love of stories and the ability to show the human side of global issues.
Dr. Folch, part of your research that I find so interesting is how embedded you are in Paraguay. You've put down so many roots there, you know so many wonderful people, and you've lived there for just a huge chunk of your life.
Christine: If you'd asked me when I was 22 what I would want to be true about my life, I would have said: I want to travel. My parents are both immigrants from the Caribbean and I wanted to see everything. And when I landed in Paraguay the first time, I didn't know anyone. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to get to know anybody. And so, I spent my time visiting its museums and listening to music and learning about art. And what I think is so amazing about the time that I have gotten to know that country is I've gone from not knowing anybody, to feeling so at home in a place that is not my home. One of the things that's really fun about the kind of research that I've gotten to do is not just that I've gotten to travel in so many places, but getting to know Paraguay so well, that I'm able to welcome people to the country — welcoming students like you. I think that has been a tremendous honor.
So, you talked about your two majors, and you said that the thing that you find compelling about both is the power of story. So, I'd love for you to talk to me about Pedro Prokopczuk.
Andrew: This semester I've really been embedded in the life of Pedro Prokopczuk. Prokopczuk was a Nazi put on trial by the Allies post-World War Two. He was acquitted due to a lack of evidence and hightailed it to Latin America to flee. The truth is though, that while in Paraguay, he continued squashing subversives and violating human rights. I'm really trying to put myself in his writing. I feel like it's a really great privilege that I was able to actually scan documents that were typed out by his own hand, that I encountered during my research over this past summer working in Paraguay's Museum of Human Rights, El Archivo del Terror — The Archive of Terror.
Christine: So, as we're talking about stories that we're writing, can you talk about a time when the research process that you've learned here at Duke made you feel hopeful?
Andrew: So, this is an important question. But hope is so necessary, especially when you turn your sights on a topic as dark as the material contained in El Archivo del Terror. Learning about Prokopczuk, at times, is an exercise of not letting myself become emotionally overwhelmed by the work I'm doing and the evil that resided in this man. And so, what allows me to remain hopeful is thinking about the wonderful people in this space. Every day, when I walked into El Archivo, it was a warm greeting. Everybody, of course, understood just how serious the matters were in those shelves, but then there was also a kind of a camaraderie. My work would not have been possible without the wonderful curator of El Archivo, Rosa Palau. She's worked at the El Archivo since its inception, she’s what makes it possible — that allows people like you and me — to access its wonderful research capacity. Recently, I was missing a document and I emailed Rosa from halfway across the world and she made time to send me this specific document. So, when you're working in a space with people like that, I find it always very easy to feel hope. Whatever the day contains, there are good people out there who are dedicated and will continue this work, continue making sure these stories are brought to light.
Christine: One of the things that I find so powerful about my experience as a faculty member here at Duke is watching people do research and watching stories unfold, through many different kinds of sources. It could be something ethnographic, it could be something observed, something people participate in. Or it could be, in this case, a trail of documents that comes together like a mystery novel. A story that has not ever been written, and certainly not in English.
Andrew: Dr. Folch, what is your experience telling stories in Paraguay and what stories are you telling now?
Christine: I started researching in Paraguay 20 years ago because I was really fascinated by this border zone it has between Brazil and Argentina. A third of its national territory was ceded to its neighbors and was very fertile territory that produced yerba mate, which is one of my obsessions. So, I am in the final throes of putting together a book on yerba mate, which is the stimulating beverage popular in South America. And the thing that's so cool about yerba mate is, it's the world's third most popular stimulating drink behind tea and coffee. Now, I don't know if you know that yerba mate has a North American cousin.
Andrew: In a Triangle, right? In North Carolina?
Christine: In the Triangle. And it grows all over Duke's campus. And so, one of the things that's super interesting in terms of the stories that get told — one of the really curious stories is how, in the southern part of North America, we have had a similar beverage that was consumed since time immemorial. Written about in colonial records, in Spanish and English and French, consumed all over where we live right now. And so much knowledge about this beverage is lost, such that it's used as yard decor. And so, the name of this is yaupon. Y A U P O N. It's probably right outside this building. Probably after we finish this podcast, we can find it and I can show you what it is.
Andrew: So, what happened through the history of yaupon to make it so hidden? Why was tobacco the cash crop of the Carolinas?
Christine: Yeah, yerba mate is like this global beverage. Yaupon is this thing that we've forgotten. So, exactly to your point — how is it that we've lost knowledge of something so remarkable that is literally in our backyards? And I think the answer is, that maybe the things that we consume are things that we learn to consume. And part of what we do when we consume things is we become part of communities. I think it's a really important question.
Andrew, I'd love to hear what's an important lesson you've learned over your time as a Duke student?
Andrew: One of my favorite things about being a Duke student, is being surrounded by so many multifaceted people. I really think I'm blessed to go to a school, where very few people have just one thing. Folks are super-rooted in a lot of different places. I think that's, of course, a benefit of the Trinity curriculum — they let you be flexible, they let you have multiple interests. And I love how I can bring up something like a cool plant I saw or a news article I read, and I will have a friend who I can discuss it with. And their range of interests allows them to always, always teach me new things. And with that, I've kind of reached this conclusion that it has shaped the way I've been living, which is: don't join the group, join the people. And so, as I look at my extracurriculars and what I like to do for fun, I try not to look at, for example, what I think I'm good at, my preconceived notions of like, I do this, I have these hobbies, whatever — I instead look, who do I like to be around?
If you're interested in seeing my research, you can find a summary of it on the Duke Human Rights Summer Research project page.
Christine: You can find me on the site formerly known as Twitter at Christine Folch. This is an important spot because I do a lot of messaging in Spanish. And my book called “The Book of Yerba Mata, A Stimulating History” is coming out in September 2024. Yo tengo un libro que sale en septiembre, se llama “el libro de la yerba mate, una historia estimulante”. El libro es la historia de la yerba mate y la historia por la yerba mate.
Senior Editor and Producer: Cara August, Trinity Communications
Audio Editor and Mixer: Marc Maximov
Music Composition: Grace Davis, T’26
Production Sponsor: Trinity College of Arts & Sciences, Duke University
Recording Date and Location: April 2024, Bryan Center Studios
Duets is produced by Trinity College of Arts & Sciences at Duke University.
Trinity College of Arts & Sciences
