Empowering experience
Student finds inspiration for study and career while studying in Kenya
When University of Oregon student Caleb Owen studied in Kenya, being an outsider wasn’t enough.
Owen delved deeper into the culture, studying taarab, an east African musical tradition blending elements from the African continent along with those from India, as well as other parts of Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. Owen’s research formed the basis of his undergraduate thesis in the Robert Donald Clark Honors College.
“African culture is such a dynamic force,” Caleb says. “Here in the U.S. we either tend to ignore the African continent, or when we do talk about it, it’s usually in terms of people being victims of colonialization, poverty, and violence.”
(In the video below, Caleb describes taarab music and his role as a participant-observer. Story continues below video.)
Caleb says he was able to witness a lot that people in the U.S. don’t generally see in the news.
“I realize I might be categorizing an entire continent, but in Kenya I saw a culture with the ability to address serious social problems,” he says. “For example, through music, an artist can talk about HIV or poverty and then those subjects become topics of community discussion. There’s a real sense of empowerment.”
Caleb’s hands-on research was an integral part of a Swahili language and local culture study program, one of more than 165 offerings available through the UO’s Study Abroad Programs office.
Caleb, a history major from Albany, Oregon, was one of 150 students nationwide and one of three UO students in 2008 to receive a Boren Award for International Study from the National Security Education Program. The program provides funds for American students to study abroad in areas of the world that are critical to U.S. interests and generally underrepresented in study abroad, including Africa, Asia, Central and Eastern Europe, Eurasia, Latin America, and the Middle East.
In exchange for the scholarship, Caleb must spend a year working in national security for the federal government. Caleb’s focus is on serving the broader definition of national security, not necessarily in the military, but through diplomacy.
“By and large people are cynical. They think that politics are corrupt, and government can’t offer people anything,” Caleb says. “But I think it is important that people respond to that cynicism proactively by going into government and bringing the intelligence, energy, and passion that can improve situations around the world.”