to develop trust and that confidence is hard to build. It is strange if you can strike a deal with a Mexican firm where you don’t have to go and visit the country, or they visit you, and you have lunch with them. That trust is very important; it’s not the Anglo-Saxon model where trust is already built because you know that who you’re talking to is going to be honourable 99% of the time. Here, you need to build trust and figure out who you are doing business with.’ Cultural nuances within Mexico become chasms when you look at Latin America as a whole, and it must be frustrating that people from outside the region still look to group it as one. ‘Globally, we are looked at as only one region, but we have many differences. When I go to Central America or to South America, you see the cultural differences. Even though we speak Spanish, even though we have part of the same history, we’re actually quite different. It’s like trying to put Asia in the same box. Thailand is a totally different thing to Japan… Brazil is a totally different thing to us. But then, we have problems to tackle and some of the problems are the same – big social differences or income differences,
poverty, sustainability. Those are problems that need to be tackled in Latin America... So, one of our international approaches is to collaborate with [other countries in] Latin America through research,’ Nava says outlining how regional research networks can allow professors to work towards solutions to common problems, ‘even though we are culturally different’. Within Latin America, faculty interactions are the focus for collaboration because students tend to have their eyes set outside the region. ‘Student exchange is pretty hard,’ Nava explains. ‘When a Latin American student wants to go abroad, the first thing they say is, “well, I want to go to Europe, or I want to go to the US”. It’s not like they’re saying, “well, I want to go to Panama”’. Fortunately, Anáhuac México already offers its students terms (semesters) abroad to these areas. ‘There’s always been a strong link between Mexico and Spain, between Mexico and the US, and to some other parts of Europe. Those lines are already made. We’re trying to see what is not already there and make ties in Asia. We’re trying to make those links to get students to go to Asia and get Asian students to come to Latin America, and to Mexico.
17
‘Even though we have part of the same history, we’re actually quite different. It’s like
trying to put Asia in the same box’
Made with FlippingBook - Share PDF online