List of Special Awards,Scholarly and Creative Activities
Special Awards:
1977-78 Doctoral Fellow, National Defense Title VI, Portuguese language and Brazilian studies
1980-81 Fulbright Scholar, field study of indigenous Curripaco cultural practices, Venezuelan Amazon, Fulbright-Hays Training Grant, Doctoral Dissertation Abroad Program
1980-81 Social Science Research Council Fellow, International Doctoral Research, Program for Latin America and the Caribbean
1980-81 American Council of Learned Societies, International Doctoral Research, Program for Latin America and the Caribbean
1984-85 Fulbright Scholar, field study of indigenous Arawak-speaking peoples in the Venezuelan Amazon, Fulbright-Hays Faculty Research Abroad Program
1981Honorary Member, Ethnological Advisory Committee for Implementing a New Law of Bilingual, Intercultural Education, Venezuelan Ministry of Education, Bureau of Indigenous Affairs.
1983Cultural Ecology of Amazonian indigenous groups; participated in joint writing of an official publication on zoning and resource use in the Venezuelan Amazon, coordinated by Nelly Arvelo-Jimenez, Department of Anthropology, IVIC; results published by Ministry of Environment and Renewable Resources (MARNR).
1987-88 Smithsonian Institution Post-doctoral Fellow
1989 Cultural Survival Fellow, field study with indigenous peoples of Colombian Amazon, Peabody Museum, Harvard University
1989 Invited participant, Wenner-Gren Foundation International Symposium, Nova Friburgo, Brazil
1993-94 Post-doctoral Teaching Fellow, International Studies and Overseas Program, University of California at Los Angeles
1996 Invited participant, Wenner-Gren Foundation International Symposium, Mijas, Spain
1998 Faculty Summer Research Fellow, Office of Research Development and Administration, Southern Illinois University – Carbondale
1998 National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Research Fellow
1998 Wenner-Gren Foundation Scholar, fieldwork in Venezuelan Amazon
1998 Co-Principal Investigator, National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Program
2000 Co-Organizer, International Conference, Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research
2007 National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow, project on “Archiving Significant Collections,” Archives of Indigenous Languages of Latin America (AILLA), University of Texas
Editorships:
Contributing Editor, Ethnology of Lowland South America, Handbook of Latin American Studies, U.S. Library of Congress. First appointed in 1986, re-appointments in 1988, 1990, 1992.
Editorial Advisor, American Anthropologist, 1989-1993.
Book Review Editor, General/Theoretical Section, American Anthropologist, 1991-1993.
Guest Editor, ‘Contested Pasts and the Practice of Anthropology,’ First Contemporary Issues Forum, American Anthropologist, 1992.
Finalist, Current Anthropology Editor Search, 1999-2000.
Editor, Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power, Taylor and Francis, Inc. (Routledge imprint). First appointed in 2001, re-appointments in 2005 and 2007. (Eight volumes: 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009)
Editorial Board memberships: Antropológica, Instituto Caribe de Antropología y Sociología, Fundación La Salle, Caracas, Venezuela (2008- ); ABET, Journal of the Associação Brasileira de Etnomusicologia (2008- ); Cadernos de Campo - revista dos alunos de Pós-graduação em Antropologia Social da USP, Departamento de Antropologia, Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil
Offices Held in Professional Associations:
2010-2012 Executive Board, Society for the Anthropology of Religion, American Anthropological Association
2011-2014 President-Elect and Vice President, Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America (SALSA)
2014-2017 President, Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America
Invited lectures:
1983"Going Through the Center" and "Bringing Back From the Edge: A Semiotic Analysis of Symbolic Control Over Illness and Death in an Arawakan Society of the Upper Rio Negro," at the Fourth International Institute for Semiotic and Structural Studies, Bloomington, Indiana, June 8.
1986"Ecology and Rites of Passage in an Amazonian Society," at Augusta College, February 13-14, sponsored by AAA Visiting Lecturer Program.
1986"Cosmology, Value, and Hierarchy in Upper Amazonian Societies," at the Chicago Conference on Andean and Lowland South American Cosmological Systems. University of Chicago, May 16-17.
1988"To Eat or Not To Eat: The Ritual Metabolism of Colonial Experience among the Arawakan Wakuenai of Venezuela," in Symposium on Colonialism Experienced, William Merrill, organizer. Department of Anthropology, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., June 22 to 24.
1988"Ritual Hierarchy and Secular Equality: the Poetics of Ritual Power in an Amazonian Society," at the Department of Anthropology, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., April 17.
1989"The Poetics of Ritual Power in an Amazonian Society," at Department of Anthropology, Cornell University, March 14.
1989"Ritual, History, and Ecology: Towards a New Amazonian Synthesis," at Amazonian Synthesis: An Integration of Disciplines, Paradigms, and Methodologies, Anna Roosevelt, Organizer. Sponsored by Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. Nova Friburgo, Brazil, June 2 to 10.
1989"Metamorphosis: Mythic and Musical Modes of Exchange in the Amazon Rainforests of Venezuela and Colombia," at Center for Latin American Studies, Cornell University, March 13.
1989"Mesianismo, Mitologia, y Etnogenesis: La Recuperacion Historica entre los Wakuenai (Curripaco) del Alto Rio Negro," Universidad de los Andes and Colombian Institute of Culture, July 26.
1989"El Mito, La Musica, y la Historia: La Poetica del Poder Ritual entre los Wakuenai (Curripaco de Venezuela," Universidad de los Andes y Colombian Institute of Culture, July 27
1989"A Poetica do Poder Ritual," at Conjunto de Antropologia, IFCH, Universidade de Campinas, Campinas, Brasil, June 21.
1989"A History e a Mitologia no Alto Rio Negro," at Departamento de Antropologia, Projeto Historia Indigena, Universidade de Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo, Brasil, June 20.
1991""We Speak To Our Children:" Musical Myth as the Poetic Construction of Historical Space-Time among the Arawakan Wakuenai." Department of Anthropology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, January 25.
1991""Made From Bone:" Trickster Myths and the Narrative Construction of History in an Amazonian Society." CUNY Graduate Center, New York City, May 3.
1993"Rethinking Genres: Sung Myth and Chanted Speech in an Amazonian Society." Symposium on Rethinking Genres, UCLA Center for the Study of Comparative Folklore and Mythology, Los Angeles, December 4.
1993"Hacia una Vision de la Antropologia Post-Colonial." Coloquio Internacional, CONAC (National Council on Cultural Activities), Caracas, June 28.
1996“The Varieties of Fertility Cultism in Amazonia: A Closer Look at Gender Symbolism in Northwestern Amazonia.” Wenner Gren Conference on “Amazonia and Melanesia: Gender in Anthropological Comparison,” Thomas Gregor and Donald Tuzin, organizers. Mijas, Spain, Sept. 8-15.
1999“”Made from Bone”: Trickster Myths, Musicality, and Social Constructions of History in the Venezuelan Amazon.” A Symposium on Myth, Folklore Institute, Indiana University, Bloomington, May 14-16.
2000Shamanism, Colonialism, and the Wild Woman: Fertility Cultism and Historical Dynamics in Northwestern Amazonia. Paper written for conference on Comparative Arawakan Histories, J. Hill and F. Santos Granero, organizers, Panama, May 25-27.
2003The Politics of Indigenous Identities in South America, 1989-1998. Seminar on “Mestizaje y Poder en las Américas,” Guillaume Boccara, organizer. Sponsored by the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (France) and Casa de Velázquez, Madrid, December 13-14.
2005Indigenous Cartographies and Nation-States: Towards a Comparative-Historical Perspective on the 2000 Law of Land Demarcation and Habitat Protection in Venezuela. Brown Bag Lecture Series, Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, November 3.
2005The Politics of Indigenous Identities in South America, 1989-1998. Department of Anthropology Workshop, University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, November 4.
2005Cartografías indígenas y Estados Naciones: Hacia una visión histórica-comparativa de la Ley de Demarcación y Garantía del Hábitat y Tierras de los Pueblos Indígenas. Ponencia preparado para el symposio “Concibiendo cartografías indígenas: Experiencias prácticas y problemas conceptuales en los procesos de demarcación territorial en Venezuela,” Dras. Hortensia Caballero y Egleé López-Zent, organizadores. LV CONVENCIÓN ANUAL ASOVAC, Caracas. Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Central de Venezuela, November 22.
2006Soundscaping the World: The Cultural Poetics of Power and Meaning in Wakuénai Flute Music. Spurlock Museum, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, April 8.
2006Ethnohistorical Geographies and Ethnogenesis in the Northwest Amazon. Workshop on “Mapping Culture: Geographical Information Systems in the Human Sciences,” Alf Hornborg, organizer. Lund University, Sweden, November 27-29.
2006El discurso, el Poder, y la Historia:Algunas implicaciones del Proyecto sobre las Historias Comparativas de los grupos arahuacos para el estudio de las identidades de los pueblos chibchan a través del tiempo y del espacio. Symposio sobre “Exploración de las relaciones históricas entre los pueblos indígenas de la Baja América Central y del norte de Suramérica,” Silvia Salgado and Marcos Guevara, organizers. San José: Universidad de Costa Rica and Museu Nacional de Costa Rica, Oct. 25-27.
2008Sacred Landscapes as Environmental Histories in Lowland South America, Part II. International workshop on “Amazonian Ethno-linguistics,” Lund University, Sweden. June 2-4.
2008Musicalizing the World: Shamanic Approaches to the Study of Music. Invited paper at opening roundtable session on “Ethnomusicology and the Production of Knowledge,” Samuel Araujo, organizer. Brazilian Association for Ethnomusicology (ABET), Maceió, Brazil, Nov. 11-14.
2009History, Power, and Identity from the Anthropological Perspective. Department of Ethnology, Lithuanian Institute of History, Vilnius, Lithuania, May 22
2009Current Issues in Indigenous Studies of the Amazon Region. Social Anthropology Seminar Cycle, Social Anthropology Center, Faculty of Social Sciences, Vytautus Magnus University, Kaunas, Lithuania, May 21
2010“The Anthropology of Indigenous Amazonia: A New Research Program for the 21st Century.” Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences Division, National Science Foundation, Arlington, VA, April 26, 2010.
2010“Ritual speech, musicality, and materiality in Amazonia.” Workshop on "Ritual Speech and Subjectivity," University of Texas at Austin, October 14 – 16.
Papers at conferences:
1979"Kamayura Flute Music," at Central States Meetings of the Society for Ethnomusicology, Urbana, Illinois, April.
1983"Research Design and Fieldwork in Ethnomusicology," at the Primer Congreso Interamericano de Etnomusicologia y Folklore, Caracas, Venezuela, September 9.
1983"Culinary Symbolism in Wakuenai Childbirth Chants," at Annual Meetings of the Society for Ethnomusicology, Tallahassee, Florida, October 20-23.
1983"Agnatic Sibling Relations and Rank in Northern Arawakan Myth and Social Life," at the Annual Meetings of the American Anthropological Association, Chicago, Illinois, November 18.
1984"Wakuenai Oral Narrative and Millenarianism," co-authored with Robin M. Wright, at the Annual Meetings of the American Anthropological Association, Denver, Colorado, November 17.
1985"Ritual Hierachy and External Resistance," at the Annual Meetings of the American Anthropological Association, Washington, D.C., December 8.
1985"Mito, Nombre-Espirito, y el Arte de Asencion Micro-Tonal: Los Ritos de Nacimiento entre los Wakuenai," at the 45° Congreso Internacional de Americanistas, Universidad de los Andes, Bogota, Colombia, July 1 to 8.
1986"Cosmology and Situation of Contact in the Upper Rio Negro Region," at the Annual Meetings of the American Anthropological Association, Philadelphia, December 3 to 7.
1988"Time, Narrative, and Ritual: Historical Interpretations from an Amazonian Society." Paper read in session on "Native American Narrative Discourse," Joel Sherzer, Organizer. 42nd International Congress of Americanists, Amsterdam, Holland, July 4 to 8.
1988"The Soft and the Stiff: Nominal Classifiers in a Northern Arawakan Language." Paper read in session on "The Words of the Tribe: Amerindian Views of Language," Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, Organizer. 42nd International Congress of Americanists, Amsterdam, Holland, July 4 to 8.
1989"Women's Shaming as Informal Social Control among the Arawakan Wakuenai of Venezuela," at Annual Meetings of the American Anthropological Association, Washington D.C. , November.
1989"Demystifying Structural Violence: Case Studies in the Domination of Indigenous Minorities in the Venezuelan Amazon," at 15th International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association, San Juan, Puerto Rico, October.
1990"Ancestors for the Pigs: Amazonian Representations of the History of Western Colonial Power." American Anthropological Association, New Orleans, November 28.
1991"Sound, Speech, and Song: The Poetics of Personhood in Lowland South America." American Anthropological Association, Chicago, November 22.
1991"From Conspiracy Theory to Military Repression: De-Mythologizing the Military Discourse of National Security Versus Terrorist Subversion in Latin America." International Congress of Latin American Studies, Washington, D.C., April 4-6.
1992"Opening the Jaguar's Mouth: Northern Arawakan Ethnogenesis and Historical Transformations." American Association for the Advancement of Science, Chicago, February 12.
1992"Northern Arawakan Ethnogenesis and Historical Transformations." American Anthropological Association, San Francisco, December 5.
1993"Language Contact and Ritual Hierarchy: Toward a Comparative Regional Understanding of Eastern Tukanoan and Northern Arawakan Social Organization." 18th International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences, Mexico City, August 4.
1994"Ritual Power, History, and Music in Lowland South America." Society for Ethnomusicology, So. California Chapter, Los Angeles, Feb. 26.
1994"Native Ethnography, Bilingual Education, and Indigenous Self-Empowerment in Venezuela." International Congress of Americanists, Stockholm, Sweden, July 8.
1994"Musicality and the Construction of History in Lowland South America." International Congress of Americanists, Stockholm, Sweden, July 6.
1995“Northern Arawakan Peoples and Extralocal Factors.” American Anthropological Association, Washington D.C., November 17.
1995"Violent Encounters: Ethnogenesis and Ethnocide in Long-Term Contact Situations." Twelfth Annual Visiting Scholar Conference, "Studies in Culture Contact," Center for Archaeological Investigations, Southern Illinois University.
1998“Defining A New Political Landscape: The Struggle For A New Law Of Political-Territorial Division in the Venezuelan Amazon.” Meetings of the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences, Session on “Politics and Culture in the Northwest Amazon,” Robin Wright and Jean Jackson, co-organizers.
1999The Mythic Primordium Enters Pentium Space-Time. Annual Meetings of the American Anthropological Association, Chicago, Illinois, Nov. 20.
2001Shamanizing the State in Venezuela. Session on “Indigenous Histories in National Contexts: Towards an Integrated Amazonian Historical Anthropology.” Annual Meeting of the American Society for Ethnohistory, Tucson, AZ, Oct. 17-20.
2004Collares de Quirípa como símbolo de la Hibridación Económica Colonial en la Región del Alto Río Negro. Symposio sobre “Los Sistemas Interétnicos del Orinoco. S. XII al XIX (Primer Tercio),” II Congreso Nacional de Antropología, Mérida, Venezuela. Alexander Mansutti Rodríguez, Kay Tarble-Scaramelli y Horacio Biord Castillo, Organizadores. Universidad de los Andes, November 3-4.
2005How to make the study of ethics central to anthropology. American Anthropological Association Annual Meetings, December 3.
2006Soundscaping the World: The Cultural Poetics of Power and Meaning in Wakuénai Flute Music.” Symposium on “Burst of Breath: New Research on Indigenous Ritual Flutes in Lowland South America,” Jonathan D. Hill and Jean-Pierre Chaumeil, co-organizers, 52nd International Congress of Americanists, Sevilla, Spain, July 17-18.
2006Materializing the Occult: An Approach to Understanding the Nature of Materiality in Wakuénai Ontology. Symposium on “The Occult Life of Things: Native Amazonian Theories of Materiality,” Fernando Santos-Granero and Phillipe Erikson, co-organizers, 52nd International Congress of Americanists, Sevilla, Spain, July 17.
2006How to Ask for a Drink in Curripaco: An Amazonian Musicology of Gender and Personhood. Session on “Experiencing Gender in Amazonia: Fieldwork, Emplacement and Social Roles in Indigenous Communities, II”; Stephanie Alemán, Organizer, American Anthropological Association annual meeting, San Jose, CA, November 17.
2007Sacred Landscapes as Environmental Histories in Lowland South America. Paper presented at the 106th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Washington, DC, November, 30, 2007.
2008Refashioning Identities, Remaking the World: Adaptability, Creativity, and Transformation in the Works of Norman and Dorothea S. Whitten. Session on “Symbolic Affinities, Pragmatic Engagements: Shaping Latin American Ethnology through the Collaborative Work of Norman and Dorothea Scott Whitten,” Kathleen Fine, organizer. American Anthropological Association annual meeting, San Francisco, CA, November 23.
2008Fashioning Plants: An Amazonian Materiality in Three Movements. Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America (SALSA) Fifth Sesquiannual Conference. Oxford, UK and Paris, France, June 17-21.
2009Long-term Patterns of Ethnogenesis in Indigenous Amazonia. 2009 Visiting Scholar’s Conference, “Hybrid Material Culture: The Archaeology of Syncretism and Ethnogenesis,” Jeb Card, Organizer. CAI/SIUC, March 28
2010“Tricksterish polyphonic discourses among the Wakuénai of Venezuela.” Session on ‘Ordeals of Language,’ Anthony Webster and Jonathan Hill, co-organizers, American Anthropological Association, New Orleans, November 18.
2010“Amazonian Trickster Myths as Folk Psychological Narratives: Some Implications of Storytelling for Theories of Mind.” Session on "Indigenous Storytelling and Story Tellers Viewed Across Disciplines," Keith Carlson, Organizer, 2010 annual meeting of the Canadian Historical Association, Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, May 31.
2011 “Lost and Found in Translation: Towards a Poetics of Ritual Speech in Amazonia.” Session on Translation and Poetics in Speech and Music. VII International Meeting of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America (SALSA), June 22-26, 2011. Belém, Pará, Brazil.
Discussant for sessions:
1985Discussant, session on "Historical Ecology," Annual Meetings of the American Anthropological Association, Alice Ingerson, organizer. Washington, D.C.
1994Discussant, session on "Native Latin American Musics," International Congress of Americanists, Stockholm, Sweden, July 5-7.
1995Discussant, workshop on "Culture and the Production of Security and Insecurity in the International System." Sponsored by Department of Political Science and the University Research Council, Kent State University, April 28-30.
1995Discussant, session on “The Meta-Pragmatics of Social Discourse,” Neil L. Whitehead, organizer. American Anthropological Association, Washington, D.C., November 18.
1996Discussant, session on “Reconstructing and Deconstructing Colonial Peripatetics in Venezuela,” Berta Perez, organizer. American Anthropological Association, San Francisco, November 21.
1999Discussant, session on Amazonia at the Millenium: Indigenism, Identity and the Popular Imagination, Maria Moreno, organizer. American Anthropological Association, Chicago, IL November 17.
2002Discussant, session on “Committed Fieldwork,” Emma Cervone, organizer. American Anthropological Association, New Orleans, LA, November 21.
2005Panelist, Round Table discussion on the rise of left-wing governments and social movements in Latin America, Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, April 14.
2005Discussant, session on “Good Missionary, Bad Missionary.” Rachel Corr, organizer. American Anthropological Association annual meetings, Dec. 4.
2006Panelist, round-table discussion on “Venezuelan Presidential Elections: After 8 Years in the Presidency, Hugo Chavez will be seeking re-election on Dec. 3, 2006.” Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Nov. 10, 2006.
2007Discussant for session on Language and Archaeology, A. Hornborg (Organizer). Final conference of the European Science Foundation’s Collaborative Research System (EUROCORES) programme, "The Origin of Man, Language, and Languages (OMLL)," Rome, December 12.
2007Discussant for session on Bridging Identities: Multidisciplinary approaches to Mayan ethnicity in long-term perspective, B. Myers (Organizer). 106th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Washington, DC, November, 28, 2007.
2008Discussant, Brazilian Association for Ethnomusicology (ABET), Pre-Conference on “Indigenous Amazonian Ethnomusicology,” in memory of Dra. Maria Ignez Cruz Mello. Maceio, Alagoas, Brasil. Nov. 12.
2010Discussant for session on “Technologies of Circulation and the Politics of Emergent Global Identities in Amazonia,” Stephanie Alemán, Organizer and Chair. American Anthropological Association, New Orleans, November 19.