The Queens Bird Island Expedition

Organizational Communication international trips for graduate students are designed as research trips which bring into sharp focus individual and group behaviors outside of our daily comfort zones.  They take place every two years. The 2005 International Experience took place in Antigua, where tourism is the mainstay of the economy.  Through the portal of the tourist experience, the trip focused on group structure, as students not only negotiated a new culture, but also negotiated their relationships in a group living laboratory that took the form of a hilltop villa.

As they do for each trip, before they departed, students spent a number of classes studying ethnography techniques to prepare them for keeping field notes that “thickly” described their experiences.  Further, they learned the important of interrogating their assumptions, with regard to both intercultural and interpersonal relationships and encounters.  Their final papers included, for example, one study that used snorkeling as a metaphor for how culture is revealed, and another that used the experience of an Anglican church service to illuminate gaps between lives lived and lives judged.

The trip was generously planned by Conrad and Jenny La Barrie, the parents of two of our graduate students (Amy and James). It allowed OCOM students to sample some of the most popular tourist experiences on the land and sea, illuminating the island’s ecological heritage, colonial sugar economy and marine history, Anglican church foundations, and obsession with cricket.

Below are just a few of the beautiful sites we were able to explore:

Kayak class begins		Off to explore the mangroves

View going down the trail on Bird Island	Falmouth Harbor
Dr. Pupchek at Devil's Bridge	Shopping for souvenirs at Shirley Heights
Some instruments to choose	Sunset at Shirley Heights
Prickley plants at Shirley Heights	These plants get very big!
Dinner at the Sticky Wicket West Indies Cricket Club Hall of Fame	St. John's Anglican Cathedral

For an inside – make that outside -- peak at one of our active days in Antigua, visit the LaBarrie’s website,  http://www.antiguapaddles.com/, and select “The Paddles Experience.”