March Academic Exchange Session Covers Diverse Research Interests
The Visiting Scholars program kicked off this month with an Academic Exchange Session featuring international relations professor Isidro Morales Moreno and archaeobotanist Xuexiang Chen. Each talk was followed by a thoughtful Q&A session with the MacMillan community.
From Strategic to Conflictive Partnership: The U.S.- Mexico Relationship Today
Council of Latin American & Iberian Studies affiliate Isidro Morales is a Fulbright Scholar, Editor-in-Chief of the Latin American Policy Journal, and author. He discussed an increasingly fraught trade relationship between Mexico and the United States under the Trump administration.
Morales explained how formal agreements between the two countries have shaped their relationship over the past few decades. In 1994, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) went into effect, creating a free-trade zone with minimal tariffs and investment barriers. The Mérida Initiative, established in 2007, was a security cooperation between the United States and Mexico designed to combat organized crime and enforce border security.
We moved from a certain and reliable relationship to an uncertain and unreliable one. It is clear that the United States needs Mexico and Canada in order to be resilient vis-à-vis China to keep its competitiveness.
Morales described the two countries as having a cooperative, “rules-based” mutual understanding until 2020, when NAFTA was terminated and replaced by the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), which President Trump tailored towards his interests. Under heavy tariffs, supply chains for crucial industries were reshored to the United States, disrupting pre-existing systems and relationships.
Morales discussed the U.S. President’s efforts to de-risk from China, a technological challenger to the United States. The United States-China trade war has had downstream effects on China’s relationships with Mexico and Canada; both rely heavily on China for auto parts and machinery which are often included in further exports to the United States.
Morales stressed the uncertainty of these dynamics; many trade limits and thresholds are hard to predict, and President Trump is pushing for further United States military involvement in tackling organized crime in Latin America.
The Q&A following Morales's talk covered limitations to the Mexican president’s power, Canada-Mexico relations, and crime in Mexico.
Becoming a Villager: Everyday Life at the Neolithic Site (9000 BP-7500 BP) of Xiaogao, Shandong, China
Visiting Professor in East Asian Studies Xuexiang Chen studies ancient food remains to understand daily life in Neolithic-era East Asia. This pivotal period witnessed humanity’s slow transition from nomadic hunter-gathering to settled agricultural life.
Using Micro-CT 3D imaging, microscopic methods, flotation sampling, and visual observation, Chen and her team studied plant residue from excavated soil samples, pottery and stone tools. They tracked the frequency by which different species of seeds, nuts, legumes, and grains dominated diets over the millennia, finding evidence for increasing processing and cultivation over time.
One of the earliest known Neolithic people in China, the Houli, hunted and fished in addition to these early forms of husbandry. Chen’s work in excavated houses and pits revealed food storage systems, further indicating the growing prevalence of sedentary life.
Houli meat consumption strategies were especially revealing to Chen and her team; bone markings revealed preferences for hunting male over female peasants for their size and feathers, and for hunting in the late autumn and winter over breeding season in the spring and summer. Similarly, the Chinese water deer was hunted with conscious regard to breeding season.
Preceding meat farming, the Houli demonstrated small-scale landscape management, disrupting habitats to facilitate prey density and sustainable exploitation.
The Q&A covered the challenges of Neolithic archeology research and competing theories of the origin of widely-adopted domestication strategies.
The MacMillan Center welcomes over 100 visiting faculty and scholars each year. Through teaching, mentorship, and seminar participation, they enrich the intellectual experiences of students and faculty members. The program fosters connections and collaborations that might not have formed otherwise, enhancing Yale’s intellectual vitality. More information about the program and becoming a visiting scholar is available on the Visiting Scholars website.