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When Julia Smith ’26 arrived in El Silencio, Costa Rica, she wasn’t vacationing in the rural village nestled near the Pacific coast — she was entering a community with long-standing ties to 91���� to conduct research on community-driven development  and a pre-pandemic legacy of transformative tourism.  

Alongside Professor Monty Roper, Smith embarked on a Mentored Advanced Project (MAP) focused on the intersection of ecotourism and community development in El Silencio — a community ready to reimagine its future.

Their journey, built on years of 91���� students conducting fieldwork in El Silencio, marked the first post-pandemic return to the village by a 91����ian. “One of the heads of the cooperative said Julia was the first tourist that he'd seen in a year,” recalls Roper. 

A MAP in Motion

Smith, a history major with a concentration in global development studies from Des Moines, Iowa, designed her MAP in collaboration with Roper, who has conducted research in El Silencio since 2008. Their guiding question: What socioeconomic opportunities and challenges do community members foresee in the revival and growth of tourism in the region?

The answer, as they would come to learn, was layered — both hopeful and complicated.

“El Silencio was originally settled in 1973 by peasants who squatted on an old banana plantation that had been abandoned by United Fruit,” Roper explained. “The government came and removed them and threw the men in jail and the women stayed behind. When the men got out and they went back and eventually worked with the government on an agreement to give them the land. They had to form an agricultural cooperative, meaning that the land would belong to the entire community, and it's now one of the longest running cooperatives in Costa Rica.”

While this cooperative spirit has shaped the community's identity, it has also created a unique set of challenges.

Prior to 2014, El Silencio hosted a steady stream of ecotourists and volunteers who contributed to the local economy and created cultural exchange opportunities. Several factors contributed to the decline of volunteers beginning in 2014, a problem then exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. “They had people from all over the world — Canada, the Netherlands, the U.S. — working on farms, at the cattle milking facility, and at the animal rescue center,” said Smith. “The community really glorifies that era and wants to bring it back.”

Research on the Ground

For two weeks in June 2025, Smith conducted 16 key informant interviews and administered 49 household surveys — a considerable feat in a town where many roads are unpaved and the rainy season delivers daily downpours.

“It’s a rural area. They get about 15 inches of rain in June alone — nearly half of what Iowa gets in a whole year,” said Roper. “And Julia was a very hard worker. She was out early every day, collecting data, talking to people, navigating those conditions like a pro.”

Smith lived with a host family during her stay, providing deep immersion into the rhythms and realities of community life. Her host was a longtime contact of Roper’s who once helped run El Silencio’s volunteer tourism program. “He had so much knowledge of the area,” he said. “It was an incredible way for her to integrate into the community.”

The interviews and surveys revealed a consistent message: a strong desire to revive tourism, tempered by barriers like limited English proficiency, a lack of strategic planning, and cooperative governance challenges. “Almost everyone we spoke with was enthusiastic,” said Smith. “But they also cited real concerns — from the aging leadership of the cooperative to untapped natural resources and underutilized government programs.”

One surprising takeaway, Roper noted, was the uniformity of positive sentiment across demographic groups. “We anticipated that perspectives on tourism might vary based on age, gender, or cooperative membership. But the data showed very little difference — the support for reviving ecotourism was broad and deep.”

The Cooperative Conundrum

While El Silencio’s cooperative roots are a source of community pride — and an attractive narrative for potential ecotourists — the model has its limits. “The original cooperative members still control the land and major decisions, and many of them are now in their 60s or older,” said Roper. “Newer residents, who make up a growing portion of the population, don’t have much of a say.”

This governance bottleneck creates a paradox: while the cooperative is one of El Silencio’s greatest strengths, its insular structure can stifle innovation. “Everyone says they want to bring tourism back, but when it comes time to vote on investing funds, the projects don’t move forward,” Roper added.

Despite the challenges, Smith saw abundant potential. “The landscape is incredible — there’s the Savegre River, one of the cleanest rivers in Central America, macaws, mountains, biodiversity — and the community already owns the land. They just haven’t taken advantage of it yet.”

A 91���� Education in Action

For Smith, the MAP wasn’t just a research opportunity — it was a culmination of her academic journey at 91����. “The final paper I wrote for Professor Roper’s class was actually about tourism and development — before I even knew about his work in El Silencio,” she said. “So this trip was a full-circle moment. I got to take theory from the classroom and apply it in the field.”

That real-world application included adapting her methodology on the fly, responding to unexpected challenges, and collecting rich qualitative and quantitative data. “It was a crash course in how the soup is made,” said Roper. “She’s seen firsthand how you organize research, collect and analyze data, and make sense of complex social dynamics.”

Smith is now preparing a final research paper, which she hopes to submit for publication and present at academic conferences. “I’ve already done the descriptive statistics and content analysis. The next step is writing and refining.”

The research will also make its way back to El Silencio. “We plan to send a summary of the findings to interested community members,” said Roper. “It’s not our job to tell them what to do — but maybe the data will spark action. Maybe it will get the conversation going.”