Monday, March 1
Mariana Mora
|
Bárbara Flores
|
Maia Aguilera Maia Aguilera is an Itonama indian, an indigenous people suffering ethnocide in the Bolivian Amazon. She is a lawyer and a Master's student in the Department of Philosophy and General Theory of Law at the Faculty of Law of USP, with the theme of the rights of indigenous children and adolescents. Her research addresses the centrality of guaranteeing the original territories for asserting the rights of indigenous children, as they are preferential targets of ethnocides, through the separation of them from their people. She is also a co-founder of deFEMde, Rede Feminista de Juristas (Feminist Network of Jurists), and a member of the Commission on Sexual and Gender Diversity and the Center for Indigenous Communities of the OAB/SP's Human Rights Commission. |
Diego Melo Ascencio Diego Melo Ascencio is a PhD candidate in the Geography department at CU Boulder. Their research focuses on Black and Indigenous territorial rights in Colombia, particularly the role of cartographic demarcations in the co-production of extractive frontiers. Diego is currently working for the Colombian Commission for the Clarification of Truth, Co-existence and Non-repetition as researcher and analyst. They will soon move to Quibdó, Chocó, to begin dissertation fieldwork alongside social movements striving for Black and Indigenous autonomy throughout the Pacific lowlands. |
Moira Ivana Millan Moira Ivana Millán is a Mapuche novelist and co-founder of the Movement of Indigenous Women for Good Living (Movimiento de mujeres indígenas por el buen vivir). She participates in the feminist movement Ni una menos, denouncing the feminicide of Indigenous women. She was a co-writer and protagonist of the documentary Pupila de mujer, mirada de la tierra, which was the winner in the third edition of the DocTV Latin America contest. The documentary, premiered in 2012 on public television channels in several South American countries, addresses from a gender perspective the problem of identity and the struggle for the territory of Indigenous nations. In 2012, she began a series of meetings with women from different Indigenous nations, which gave rise to the first march of Indigenous Women for Good Living in 2015, representing 36 nations. In 2018, this initiative was consolidated with the formation of the Movement of Indigenous Women for Good Living, which defines itself as anti-patriarchal, of which Moira Millán is coordinator and reference. In 2019, Millán published the novel El tren del olvido. |
David Barillas Chón (Assistant Professor, Western University) I am Maya Poqomam and part of the Maya diaspora living across the Americas. My migration journeys and Indigenous remembrance shapes my research focus, educational, and political commitments. I investigate issues concerning Indigenous identity, immigration, colonialisms, and race in the contexts of schooling and education. My current focus is on how Indigeneity is reshaped in specific temporal-spatial, labored, and schooling contexts, and how Indigenous migrants shape our understandings of Indigeneity. My research is geared to impact a range of communities working with and for the equitable treatment of Indigenous, migrant, and minoritized populations in and out of education settings. |
Magdaleno Díaz Magdaleno has called Gunnison, Colorado home for almost 20 years. He’s from the town of Jesús María in western Mexico and speaks Spanish, Cora and English. Working as a manager in one of Mt. Crested Butte’s lodges, Magdaleno is an active member of the Cora community in the Gunnison Valley. He volunteers at the Gunnison Country Food Pantry and is a member of the Hispanic Affairs Project. |
Maricela Lucas (San Luis Valley Immigrant Resource Center, Alamosa, CO) My name is Maricela Lucas and I am 25 years old. I was born in La Jara, CO but I grew up in Omaha, Nebraska. I am of Mayan descent and I speak Q’anjob’al, as well as English and Spanish. I obtained my Bachelor’s degree in Criminology & Criminal Justice from the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO) in December 2018. I also have a minor in Religious Studies. I am a first-generation University graduate. Currently, I am the Crime Victim Housing coordinator at the San Luis Valley Immigrant Resource Center in Alamosa, CO. |
Laurel Klafehn (Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network) Laurel Klafehn was born and raised in Denver, Colorado. She had the privilege of studying Spanish throughout the course of her childhood at Proyecto Lingüistico Quetzalteco, a Spanish school in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala. In 2019, Laurel graduated from the Spanish Translation & Interpretation certificate program at the Community College of Aurora. She started volunteering as an interpreter at the Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network (RMIAN) in the same year, and was thrilled when a Legal Assistant position opened at the organization. She has worked with RMIAN's Detention Program since 2019 and currently coordinates all of RMIAN's volunteer interpreters and translators. RMIAN provides free legal services to adults who are detained at the GEO/ICE immigrant detention facility in Aurora, Colorado and to children and families in the region who are in immigration proceedings. Laurel is passionate about language access as a key part of the movement to expand universal legal representation for our immigrant brothers, sisters, and neighbors. |
Charlie Uruchima Charlie Uruchima was born and raised in New York City (Lenapehoking) of Kichwa-Ecuadorian descent. Blending his passions for Quechua, community organizing, and media, in July 2014, Charlie co-founded Kichwa Hatari, the first Kichwa radio project in the U.S. The work of Kichwa Hatari has been featured in the New York Times, CNN, RT, and the Associated Press. Charlie has also worked extensively with grassroots organizations over the years, like Democracy Now, New Immigrant Community Empowerment (NICE), and Brandworkers. Charlie has been co-organizing the May Sumak indigenous film series since 2015. In 2020, he helped launch the New York Workers’ Bill of Rights in five Latin American indigenous languages, including Kichwa, K’iche’, Mixteco, Garifuna, and Nahuatl. He currently works at the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health (NYCOSH) coordinating a city-wide workers’ rights program. |
Doris Loayza Doris Loayza is a native Quechua and Spanish speaker, educator, and multimedia producer from Peru. She teaches Quechua at CU Boulder in addition to high school Spanish (in Bloomington, IN). She is a Quechua language partner for the Center for Language Study at Yale, and works as a language consultant and translator for films. Doris grew up in Llamellin, Ancash in the Peruvian Andes. She earned a B.A. in Psychology from Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos in Lima and worked as a social psychologist. IN 2007 she moved to New York City, and in 2014, earned an M.A. in Latin American & Caribbean Studies from NYU, where she helped to organize Andean cultural activities and produced a Quechua language podcast. After graduating, Doris studied documentary storytelling at the Bronx Documentary Center and made a short film “Bronx Llaktamanta,” about a Kichwa radio show in New York, that showed at the UN, universities, and other venues. In 2017, she moved to Bloomington, In, where she worked in client support for The Language Conservancy, a non-profit that works to revitalize Native American languages. Doris is active with the Quechua Alliance, a national organization that promotes Andean culture, and enjoys sharing her culture through music and food (she grows Peruvian peppers, potatoes and herbs, and her pisco sours are legendary). |
Montserrat Madariaga-Caro Montserrat Madariaga-Caro (pronouns she/her/hers & ella) is originally from Chile. She is a Doctoral candidate at the University of Texas at Austin and a journalist. Her dissertation “Life Relations: Micropolitics of the Body, Territory and Affects in Mapuche Lands” offers a critical interpretation of several literary and artistic works by Mapuche writers and artists as testimonies of the ways in which settler colonial violence has failed to eliminate their affective, scientific, and territorial relationship to the land. She argues that creative works by contemporary Mapuche artists—from urban and rural locations—invite readers, viewers, and listeners to engage with an ethics of care, defense, and recovery of the Mapu, the land and all of its lives. Her work aims to enrich today’s transhemispheric and global dialogues in Critical Indigenous Studies by putting Mapuche knowledges, epistemologies and aesthetics alongside theoretical works by Indigenous and non-Indigenous thinkers and activists across continents. Also to contribute to the decolonizing efforts and movements in Chile and the South Cone among Indigenous and non- Indigenous people. Madariaga-Caro recently published the academic article “La ‘eroticidad’ de la Mapu: poética-política de recuperación territorial en Roxana Miranda Rupailaf y el video-poema El Shumpall” at Taller de Letras nº 67 (Universidad Católica de Chile). Her latest journalistic article is “Cuánto cuesta un río: La lucha por el Pilmaiken.” At UT Austin, she is part of NAIPA, the Native American and Indigenous Peoples Association (NAIPA), which is the collective of graduate students, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, working to visibilize scholarship and community work by Indigenous faculty, students and community organizers, and their allies, for and concerning Indigenous peoples, in order to facilitate dialogue, support, and action. |
Cristian Aguilar Cristian Aguilar (9th Grade English Teacher at Gunnison High School in Gunnison, CO) Cristian Aguilar was born in Jesus Maria, Nayarit Mexico. He migrated to the states shortly after and settled in Gunnison, Colorado. Gunnison, best known for its sub-zero and subfreezing temperatures in the winter, also is the home to a substantial population of Cora Indians. Cristian is a part of the Cora community. He graduated in 2019 from what is now called Western Colorado University but at the time was classified as Western State Colorado University. He earned his Bachelors of Arts degree in English along with a secondary licensure and a minor in Psychology. Cristian teaches 9th grade English at Gunnison High School as well as coaches the junior varsity basketball team. In addition, Cristian provides interpretation and translation needs to Cora-speaking families in the Western slope. |
Tuesday, March 2
Andrew Cowell Andrew Cowell received his PhD from UC Berkeley in 1993. He works in the areas of linguistic anthropology and language documentation. He has worked primarily on Arapaho, and also Gros Ventre and Miwok, and has an interest in Polynesia (Hawaii and Tahiti in particular) as well. He has published numerous articles and books, as well as developing curricular material and websites for language and culture learning and documentation. His current project is to develop a lexical database of Arapaho, with funding from the NSF/NEH DEL program. |
Jason Romero, Jr. (Director, Latino History Project) Jason Romero, Jr. was born and raised in Pueblo, CO. He attended Pueblo Community College before pursuing a BA in Ethnic Studies and an MA in Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Colorado Boulder. In addition to his role as Director of the Latino History Project, Romero is also the founder and co-director of the Aquetza Youth Leadership program and a high school Chicana/o/x Studies and Government teacher is southwest Denver. Romero is also involved in anti-colonial community work through the organization Al Frente de Lucha. |
Kathia Ibacache (Romance Languages Librarian, CU Boulder) Kathia received her Master of Library and Information Science from San José State University and her Doctor of Musical Arts in Early Music Performance from the University of Southern California. After working for six years in public libraries, Kathia was appointed the Romance Languages Librarian at the University of Colorado Boulder. Her research interests encompass teaching and learning technologies, collection development and the representation of Latin American indigenous languages materials in university libraries. Kathia won an IMPART Award in 2019 and is currently an Assistant Professor. |
Linds Roberts (Education Librarian, CU Boulder) Linds Roberts, assistant professor at University of Colorado Boulder Libraries, is the subject liaison to the School of Education and Department of Ethnic Studies. They are also responsible for the Children's and Young Adult Collection. Their research interests focus on information literacy, motivational design, transfer of learning and metacognition/metaliteracy, particularly as they relate to adult learners. Linds earned an MLIS from University of Denver, and was selected as Outstanding MLIS student and nominated to the Beta Phi Mu Honors Society. Linds earned a BA in French and Humanities from CU Boulder. Before joining the University Libraries, Linds was a reference and outreach librarian at Arapahoe Community College. Contact them to arrange a research seminar for your class, to request a research consultation or to request the purchase of new materials. |
Arturo Aldama (Associate Professor, Ethnic Studies, CU Boulder) Dr. Arturo J. Aldama, born in Mexico City and grew up in Sacramento, California, serves as an Associate Professor and Associate Chair of Ethnic Studies at CU Boulder and recently served as Director of CSERA (Center for Studies in Ethnicity and Race in the Americas). He received an MA and PhD in Ethnic Studies from UC Berkeley in 1996. |
Enrique Sepúlveda (Assistant Professor, Ethnic Studies, CU Boulder) I am the son of Mexican migrant workers from the Texas/Mexican border and in my early career I worked as a bilingual classroom teacher and school principal in the northern California central valley. These experiences have shaped my lens and motivations to interrogate, examine and dismantle dominant structures, narratives and practices around culture, race and language that serve to marginalize and keep people from realizing their full humanity. I have centered my research projects in Latinx communities and schools heavily impacted by global migration in northern California, San Salvador, El Salvador, and Madrid, Spain. My research examines how Latinx peoples, youth and their families, negotiate from the bottom up global migration, citizenship, belonging and complex identity formation processes in the context of severe inequality and structural constraints within sending and receiving contexts of transnational migration circuits. My work seeks to understand and develop methodologies and pedagogies that facilitate a deeper understanding of the complex, liminal lives of migrant youth and community. |
Cathy Regan, PhD I have been at CU since 1982, as a graduate student in Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, and Museum and Field Studies; as a research associate; as director of the Girls at the Museum Exploring Science program; and, since 2008 in my current museum education position with the CU Museum of Natural History focusing on Family and Community Programs. |
James S. Hakala James S. Hakala is Senior Educator for the University of Colorado Boulder Museum of Natural History and specializes in interpretation, museum education, and program development. James has held education and administration positions with the CU Museum, the National Air and Space Museum, the American Association (now Alliance) of Museums, and the National Park Service. He earned a Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) focused in Museum Education from The George Washington University. |
Wednesday, March 3
Devon Peña (The Acequia Institute, University of Washington) Peña is a professor of anthropology at the University of Washington, a farmer, and a seed saver who also helped found the Acequia Institute in Southern Colorado. The Institute is located on a 200-acre acequia farm in the San Luis Valley. It implements applied projects in restoration ecology, permaculture, plant-breeding and seed-saving programs. |
Antonio Gonzalez MAELA (Movimiento Agroecológico de América Latina y el Caribe), International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty (IPC) Gonzalez is an indigenous Mayan Kaqchikel from Chimaltenango, Guatemala. He is a food sovereignty activist and an international representative of the Movimiento Agroecológico de América Latina y el Caribe (MAELA). MAELA is made up of 200 grassroots organizations from the entire continent and is part of the Regional Committee for Food Sovereignty and the Civil Society Mechanism operating at the level of the Committee on World Food Security of the FAO. |
Ramona Pérez Ramona Pérez is Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Center for Latin American Studies at San Diego State University. Dr. Pérez has worked for more than 25 years on issues of gender and empowerment, lead poisoning among rural and indigenous people of Oaxaca, migration from Mexico and Central America, and shifts in cuisine and food sovereignty among migrant communities. Her publications are in English and Spanish and can be found in the fields of anthropology, geography, public health, social work, criminal justice, and medicine. Her work has led to her election as the incoming president of the American Anthropological Association, the largest association of anthropologists in the world. |
Rowen White (Native American Food Sovereignty Alliance) Rowen White is a Seed Keeper from the Mohawk community of Akwesasne and a passionate activist for seed sovereignty. She is the director and founder of the Sierra Seeds, an innovative organic seed cooperative focusing on Indigenous seed restoration and education, based in Nevada City CA. Rowen is the National Program Director for the Indigenous Seed Keeper Network, which is an initiative of the Native American Food Sovereignty Alliance, a non-profit organization aimed at leveraging resources to support tribal food sovereignty projects. She is the chair of the Board of Directors of Seed Savers Exchange, the largest public access seed bank in North America. She teaches creative seed training immersions around the country within tribal and small farming communities. She weaves stories of seeds, food, culture, and sacred Earth stewardship on her blog, Seed Songs. Follow her seed journeys at www.sierraseeds.org and www.nativefoodalliance.org. |
Dr. Virginia Zavala is Professor of Sociolinguistics at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú. Her research addresses the problems of language and education, with a focus on the Andes, and from a discursive, sociocultural and ethnographic perspective. In 2014, she published the book ‘Qichwasimirayku. Batallas por el quechua’ (with Luis Mujica, Gavina Córdova and Wilfredo Ardito) and in 2019 she edited the volume ‘Racialization and Language’ (with Michele Back). She has been a Visiting Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the City University of New York. |
Dr. Rebecca Linares is an Assistant Professor in Equity, Bilingualism, and Biliteracy in the School of Education at the University of Colorado Boulder. She earned her Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her research interests include bilingual and multilingual literacy practices, and translanguaging practices. She is specifically interested in how young people access and utilize literacy knowledge in their home language(s) to negotiate their participation in new and shifting cultural and linguistic landscapes. Dr. Linares has conducted research in schools and classrooms in the U.S. as well as in rural Indigenous schools in Peru in Quechua-Spanish bilingual classrooms. |
Dr. Yuliana Kenfield Dr. Yuliana Kenfield, Assistant Professor at Western Oregon University, is a Quechua scholar. A former licensed bilingual teacher in New Mexico as well as an immigration paralegal and translator, Dr. Kenfield works with both teacher candidates in Oregon and activists from her hometown, Cusco (Peru), who are concerned about equity in education for minoritized populations. Dr. Kenfield’s research is guided by community-based research methodologies that urge researchers to move beyond critiques of the status quo into offering insights that can transform pedagogy. Dr. Kenfield’s doctoral research (soon to be published as a book in the Multilingual Matters series) aims to offer an account of an innovative participatory photovoice study carried out by diverse Andean participants. It helps us better understand how Quechua-Spanish bilinguals in higher education make sense of, and speak against, the ways in which coloniality threatens their languages, Quechua epistemologies and ontologies, as well as the ways they imagine and create decolonial spaces where they are valued. |
Laura Valdiviezo Dr. Laura Valdiviezo is a Professor in the College of Education and Director of the Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences at UMass-Amherst. Formerly an editor of Anthropology and Education Quarterly, now she co-edits the series Language Culture and Teaching (Routledge) with Sonia Nieto. As an ethnographer, Dr. Valdiviezo investigates language ideologies, diversity, and education policy in bilingual programs in the Peruvian Andes and programs serving minoritized linguistic communities in the United States. Prior to obtaining her doctorate from Teachers College, Columbia University, she was a classroom teacher in Peru, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. |
Juan Ramirez (he/él) is a PhD student in geography at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and is affiliated with the Latin American Studies Center. Juan’s research involves the intersections of cultural, health, anti-racist geographies and occupational science. After working for nearly a decade as an occupational therapist in both acute care and skilled nursing settings, Juan decided to return to academia to research the ways in which geography and occupation influence each other. Juan’s current research aims at understanding how food-related occupations shape/are shaped by Mexican transnational migration, and its effects on health. Juan’s heritage hails from the Sonoran Desert region and growing up as a 1st generation Chicano in a military family, food was a central component in his family life to stay connected to his family heritage. Whether he was living in Seattle, Philadelphia, Hawaii, Southern California or Colorado his love for food is something that always travels with him. When not social distancing during a pandemic, you can find often find him talking about food, music, or planning his next meal. His last meal would be either tacos al pastor, his mother’s menudo or fresh corn tortillas and a bowl of beans. |
Thursday, March 4
Marial Quezada Marial Quezada, originally from Boston, MA, is dedicated to human rights advocacy, in particular linguistic and education rights, in which she has worked with local and diasporic Indigenous communities in what is now the US, Mexico, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and most recently, Spain. She is a Research and Advocacy officer for Survival International, an international NGO that campaigns for Indigenous and Tribal peoples’ rights. Marial has had the privilege to study Quechua with many yachachiqkuna, for whom she is very grateful: Beginning in 2014 at Center of Bartolomé de las Casas in Cusco, Peru, later with Maria Medrana at the University of New Mexico, Doriz Loayza in New York City, and as part of her graduate studies in Human Rights, with Odi Gonzales at New York University, where she was part of the Runasimi Outreach Committee. She has had the opportunity to contribute to Quechua language initiatives at the University of California in Berkeley, and most recently, in Madrid, Spain where she spent last year as an assistant Quechua teacher and event coordinator for the Casa de la Cultura Andina. What began as an interest in Indigenous languages, as a woman with family roots in Michoacán, Mexico, developed into a commitment to learning and teaching a diverse range of cosmovisions and to centering Indigenous ways of knowing. |
Américo Mendoza–Mori Dr. Mendoza-Mori teaches Quechua and Spanish at the University of Pennsylvania, where he designed the Quechua Language Program. He received his B.A. in Literature from Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, in Lima (Peru), and completed a Ph.D. in Literary, Cultural and Linguistic studies at the University of Miami, Florida. His research focuses on Andean Culture, Quechua language, and cultural policies. Dr. Mendoza-Mori’s work has appeared in a variety of academic publications, has been presented at the United Nations, and has been featured in The New York Times, a TEDx talk, NPR, and Remezcla. He has collaborated actively with academic and community-based organizations in Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador and the United States. |
Melquiades (Kiado) Cruz is a Zapotec radio journalist, activist and researcher specializing in work with civil society organizations to develop information and communications technologies for Indigenous Peoples. He is a co-founder and active contributor at University Services and Knowledge Networks in Oaxaca (SURCO). More recently, his work has expanded into work with public institutions and civil society organizations, as well as supporting media projects developed by indigenous peoples, public agencies, university, alternative and independent journalists. He is a member of numerous collectives and community-run projects, including the Xhidza People's Center for University Studies (CEUXhidza). He is originally from the community of Santa Cruz Yagavila in the Sierra Juárez of Oaxaca, Mexico, where his grandparents and umbilical cord are buried. He grew up in Yagavila, and much of his family still lives there. |
Mare Advertencia Lirika Mare Advertencia Lirika is a Zapotec rapper, feminist, and migrant. Born in Oaxaca, she began her rap journey in 2003, building her career independently. Her musical work has led her to explore Cultural Self-Governance and Popular Education, knowledge which has help to enrich her approach to music and her projects within the local, national, and international scenes. In 2013, she received the María Sabina Award for her work in furthering women’s rights through music. Her work has been included in Spanish, Latin American, and Caribbean compilations of feminist and socially conscious music such as Mujeres Trabajando Vol. 1 (2010), Ni un besito a la fuerza (2014), FEMCEES Flow Feminista (2014). Currently, she is collaborating on the Escuela para la Libertad de las Mujeres project in Oaxaca among other educational and cultural projects. Mare Advertencia Lirika. Rapera, Zapoteca, Feminista, Migrante, Mujer nacida en Oaxaca. Comenzó su camino en el Rap, en el año de 2003, construyéndose de manera independiente. Su trabajo en la música, la ha llevado a explorar también la Autogestión Cultural, además de la Educación Popular, conocimientos que le han ayudado a enriquecer su propuesta musical y su proyecto dentro de escena local, nacional e internacional. Recibió el reconocimiento “María Sabina” por su labor a favor de la reivindicación de los derechos de la mujer a través de la música (2013). Ha sido incluida en compilados de música feminista y con conciencia de género como “Mujeres Trabajando Vol. 1” (2010), “Ni un besito a la fuerza” (2014), “FEMCEES Flow Feminista” (2014) del Estado Español, Latinoamérica y el Caribe. Actualmente, colabora, en su ciudad natal, en el proyecto “Escuela para la Libertad de las Mujeres” entre otros proyectos culturales y de educación. |
Liberato Kani (Ricardo Flores) is a Peruvian Quechua rapper and composer. In his art, he fuses hip hop with Andean, Amazonian and Afro-Peruvian music. His first album, Rimay Pueblo, was released in 2016. He has made presentations in arenas in Peru, such as the Gran Teatro Nacional del Perú, Jammin Peru, Lima International Book Fair (FIL) and AfueraFest (2020). In addition, he has sung at events in Germany, Cuba, Chile, Spain and the United States. The artist studies education at the Enrique Guzman y Valle University (Lima, Peru) and has a solid commitment to Quechua language and interculturality. Liberato Kani’s newest album, Pawaspay | Despegando (2021), is now available on Spotify. |
Caroline S. Conzelman (Ph.D. 2007, University of Colorado – Boulder) is a cultural anthropologist specializing in community democracy, coca leaf politics, cooperative agriculture, U.S. foreign policy, and Latin American history. She is a Senior Instructor in the Anthropology Department, the Global Studies Academic Program, and the International Affairs Program at CU Boulder. Dr. Conzelman conducts ethnographic fieldwork and directs a summer Study Abroad program in Bolivia, and teaches courses on the anthropology of democracy, drugs and drug policy, globalization, immigration, sustainability, social entrepreneurship, Latin America, and community engagement. |
Dayanna Salas Dayanna Salas is an undergraduate student at the University of Pennsylvania where she intends to double major in International Relations and Economics. She is interested in the diplomatic, economic, and cultural relations between South American countries and the political involvement of Indigenous communities in the Andes. Currently, Dayanna is a student co-organizer at Penn’s Indigenous Latinx Project. Born in Guayaquil, Ecuador, she intends to use her education to get involved in Ecuadorian politics. |
Sandra Calel Sandra Calel is a Mayan Pocomchi land and life defender, sub-coordinator of UVOC, the Union of Campesino Organizations of Verapaz and coordinator of the Man-Woman Balance program. In 2006 UVOC established Radio Kamolb’e Chamtaqa, serving around 50 communities with original programming in Q’eqchi’ language. |
Friday, March 5
Kelly McDonough I am of Anishinaabe (White Earth) and Irish descent, co-editor of the award-winning Native American and Indigenous Studies journal, and Director of the LLILAS Benson Indigenous Languages Initiative. In my first book,The Learned Ones: Nahua Intellectuals in Postconquest Mexico (University of Arizona Press, First Peoples: New Directions in Indigenous Studies), I presented case studies drawn from the past 500 years to show various forms of Nahua intellectual production, systematically debunking the erroneous racialized discourse that refused to see Nahuas as intellectuals. In my current book project Indigenous Science and Technologies of Mexico Past and Present: Nahuas and the World Around Them, I shift this conversation to the realm of science and technologies. Academics and the general public alike tend to picture Indigenous peoples as possessing quasi-mystical “elder knowledges,” but rarely think of them in terms of rigorous research and problem solving. Science and technology are thought to be the purview of the West, while “practices” and “habitus”—lacking intentionality—belonging to the rest (Norton 2017). In this interdisciplinary study, I place Indigenous peoples squarely within the realm of science and technologies through a series of case studies related Nahua science and natural resource management, and technologies of communication and culture reproduction in colonial and contemporary Mexico. I argue that recognizing and understanding their diverse scientific and technological knowledges should be a priority as we seek creative solutions to increasingly complex problems in our globalized world. |
Fabiola Carrillo Tieco Náhuatl writer Fabiola Carrillo Tieco holds a degree in history from the Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla and teaches Mesoamerican Studies at the Universidad Autónoma de México, where she is a doctoral student. Fabiola has published several titles including “In tlazinque / La perezosa” (2012); “In xinachtli in tlahtolli-Amoxtli zazanilli / El semillero de palabras-Libro de cuentos” (2014); and “Yei xinachtli, Yei tlahtolli / Tres semillas, tres palabras” (2015). Fabiola was also a coordinator for the Project Toconehua, which produced a book with the same name, and published her poetry in 2019 in the serie Xochitlajtoli in Círculo de Poesía. |
Elvira Espejo Ayca Elvira Espejo Ayca is a visual artist, musician, weaver, and oral storyteller who expresses the traditions of her hometown, ayllu Qaqachaka, Oruro, Bolivia. Between 2013-2020, she worked as director of Museo Nacional de Etnografía y Folklore in La Paz, Bolivia. In 2020, she won the Goethe Medal “for outstanding cultural personality,” the highest distinction in culture that Germany's Federal Government offers. As a visual artist, she exhibited her work at Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid, HKW Casa de las Culturas del Mundo in Berlín, and Espacio Simón I Patiño in La Paz. |
Irma Alvarez Ccoscco Irma Álvarez Ccoscco is a Quechua poet and language activist from Haquira, in Peru’s Apurímac region. She is a former fellow of the Artist Leadership Program at Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian. In 2018 she presented her first short-film Runasimpi Qillqaspa, about the efforts to promote literacy among Quechua native speakers in the Andes. Additionally, she has been involved in projects about the use of Quechua language in radio, software, and programmers in Peru and the United States. |
Jermani Ojeda Ludeña I am a Quechua indigenous scholar and member of a Quechua community in Apurimac region, Peru. Currently I am a PhD student in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at UT Austin and my interest is the field of Indigenous Media response in the Andes of South America. I study the experience of broadcasting Quechua sounds and voices through radio stations. I got my BA degree in journalism at the Public University of San Antonio Abad in Cusco City, Peru; where I was the President of the Association of Quechua, Aymara, and Amazonian Students. My MA degree is in Social Management from the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru. |
Serafín M. Coronel-Molina is an Indigenous scholar and native speaker of Huanca Quechua, an endangered variety spoken in the central highlands of Peru. Dr. Coronel-Molina currently holds a Named and Endowed Title of Indiana University Bicentennial Professor (2019-2021). He is also an Associate Professor of Literacy, Culture, and Language Education in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at Indiana University Bloomington. He is a sociolinguist, educational linguist, ethnographer, lexicographer, editor and translator. He delivered lectures and presented papers around the world. His research appears in numerous book chapters published by Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, Routledge, Multilingual Matters, Wiley-Blackwell, Springer, SAGE, Wilson, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, UNESCO, Nova Science Publishers, among others. Dr. Coronel-Molina’s research also appears in several top international journals. He is the author of the Best Seller Quechua Phrasebook (2019, 5th Edition, Lonely Planet), and of a book on Language Ideology, Policy and Planning in Peru (2015, Multilingual Matters), and co-editor of Indigenous Language Revitalization in the Americas (2016, Routledge). He is about to complete a co-authored book manuscript titled Classroom Ethnography: The Theory and Practice to be submitted to Multilingual Matters. |
Luis E. Cárcamo-Huechante is a scholar of Mapuche origin who grew up in Tralcao, a rural village in the River Region of Valdivia in southern Chile. He studied Philosophy and Social Sciences at the Universidad Austral de Chile (1980-1985), obtained his MA at the University of Oregon (1995-1997), and earned his PhD in Hispanic Studies at Cornell (1997-2001). He taught at Harvard University between 2001 and 2009. Since 2009, he teaches Latin American and indigenous literatures and cultures at The University of Texas at Austin. He is a founding member of the Comunidad de Historia Mapuche (CHM), which is a collective of indigenous, Mapuche researchers based in Temuco, southern Chile. Through the CHM, he has recently co-edited the collections of essays on colonial violence, entitled Awükan ka kütrankan zugu Wajmapu meu: Violencias coloniales en Wajmapu (Ediciones Comunidad de Historia Mapuche, 2015); and also Ta iñ fijke xipa rakizuameluwün. Historia, colonialismo y resistencia desde el país Mapuche (Ediciones de Historia Mapuche, 2012), the first book of this Mapuche collective, and which brings together fourteen Mapuche authors who examine many dimensions of Mapuche history, relying upon the concept of colonialism as the axis of debate and reflection on historical, political, cultural and territorial issues. In August 2012, Professor Cárcamo-Huechante won the Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award, the University of Texas System Board of Regents's highest teaching honor. During the 2013-2014 academic year, he was a Fellow at the National Humanities Center in North Carolina. For more informaton on Comunidad de Historia Mapuche, see: https://www.comunidadhistoriamapuche.cl; for the Program in Native American and Indigenous Studies at UT, go to, http://liberalarts.utexas.edu/nais/. |
Josefina Navarro Es profesora de lengua quechua. Se dedica al activismo lingüístico en diferentes espacios formales y no formales de educación. Se desempeña como docente en la FFyL de la Universidad de Buenos Aires y en el Instituto Nacional de Antropología y Pensamiento Latinoamericano. Estudió Filosofía en la Universidad de Buenos Aires e investiga temas relacionados con filosofía andina, filosofía intercultural y pensamiento latinoamericano. Es cofundadora del proyecto educativo Educación sexual integral en quechua y trabaja como asesora en el proyecto Arte Digital de la Asociación Filosofía desde el Arte. Es coautora de los libros Akuychis 1: kichwata rimanaychispaq y Yanasuspura. Entre amigos vocablo y acercamiento al quichua santiagueño. Ambos materiales destinados a la enseñanza del quechua como lengua segunda. Además, es autora y coordinadora del libro Tejiendo Palabras I, material editado por la Subsecretaría de Derechos Humanos y Pluralismo Cultural del Gobierno de la Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires. Tiene experiencia como alfabetizadora en lengua quechua en diversos centros barriales. Trabajó brindando asesoramiento y talleres de lengua y cultura quechua destinados a docentes y estudiantes de escuela inicial y media en el marco de la Gerencia Operativa de Lenguas Extranjeras del Ministerio de Educación. Además, trabajó en la traducción de guiones de producciones audiovisuales y teatrales. |
Leila Gómez (Ph.D. 2004, Johns Hopkins University) is the Director of CU´s Latin American Studies Center since 2017, and Associate Professor of Spanish. Her research interests are travel writing, female Indigenous narratives and films on land reclamation, feminist theory, and Quechua language and culture. Some of Dr. Gómez´s publications are her books Darwinism in Argentina (Bucknell UP 2012), Iluminados y tránsfugas. Relatos de viajeros y ficciones fundacionales en Argentina, Paraguay y Perú (Iberoamericana Vervuert, 2009), Teaching Gender through Latin American, Spanish and Latino Literature and Culture, (co-editor, Sense Publishers 2015); and Journal Special Issues Indigenous Narratives of Origin and Land Reclamation (English Language Notes 58(1) 2020), and Capitalismo, globalización y violencia de género (Co-editor, Letras femeninas. Vol 43, Nro 2. 2018). Dr. Gómez was the recipient of the Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship for Advanced Researchers in 2015-2016 and is the Principal Investigator in the Project Building Institutional Continuity funded the US Department of Education Title VI, International and Foreign Language Education (IFLE) Grant awarded to the Latin American Studies Center at CU in 2020 to teach Quechua courses at this institution. |
Gladys Camacho Rios I am an L1 speaker of the South Bolivian variety of Quechua. I am originally from a rural town where I have inherited my native language along with its cultural values. I am a community-based language researcher, a published author in Quechua, and PhD candidate in Linguistics. My fieldwork involves documenting monolingual Quechua as it is spoken by elderly people in rural towns in Bolivia. |
Emil Keme Emilio del Valle Escalante (K’iche’ maya) is originally from Guatemala. His teaching and research interest focus on contemporary Latin American literatures and cultural studies with particular emphasis on indigenous literatures and social movements, Central American literatures and cultures, and post-colonial and subaltern studies theory in the Latin American context. He has been concerned with contemporary indigenous textual production and how indigenous intellectuals challenge hegemonic traditional constructions of the indigenous world, history, the nation-state and modernity in order to not only redefine the discursive and political nature of these hegemonic narratives, but also interethnic or intercultural relations. His broader cultural and theoretical interests cluster around areas involving themes of colonialism as these relate to issues of nationhood, national identity, race/ethnicity and gender. |