linguistic/environmental/Multimodal Anthropology
Georgia Ennis
is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at Western Carolina University. Learn more.
serafina grefa chagrama riushkamanda/Serafina grefa on her way to her garden
research location
Napo, Ecuador
My research engages with Kichwa (Quichua) organizations and communities in the Archidona-Tena region of the Ecuadorian Amazon, an area undergoing rapid urbanization.
Mushuk Ñampi’s first live wayusa upina broadcast, march 2016 at amupakin
Media & Language revitialization
Research
Grounded in community collaboration and drawing upon linguistic and ethnographic methods, my research explores the possibilities and consequences of different genres of media production for the reclamation of Upper Napo Kichwa language and culture. For eighteen months, I appeared as a guest host on Kichwa radio programs, assisted a women’s cultural revival organization in the production of community media, and explored media reception in a multi-generational Kichwa household.
Rainforest Radio
Placing media at the center of the study of language contact, shift, and revitalization, Rainforest Radio shows that Amazonian Kichwa radio programs are emergent sites for the production of social memory, which contribute to the reclamation and reconfiguration of regional linguistic and environmental practices. Read more.
one second ethnography
How can anthropologists leverage emerging digital technologies to enhance their research, storytelling, and teaching? Shot and edited on iPhone during field research between 2015-2017, "One Second Ethnography" is an experiment in multimodal ethnographic practice. Watch the video.
AMUPAKIN
During fieldwork, I collaborated with the Association of Upper Napo Kichwa Midwives to produce Ñukanchi Sacha Kawasaywa Aylluchishkamanda/ Relaciones con nuestra selva/Relating to our Forest, a book and matching DVD collect fifteen stories told in lowland Ecuadorian Quichua with Spanish and English translations. Learn more about AMUPAKIN.
“We ourselves are killing the earth. Lacking faith, we ourselves are killing the medicinal forest. That’s why with these conversations, with the stories we have told, leaving them written and recorded too, we are safekeeping them so that our children, our grandchildren, and then their children too will put on this video and will see and say, ‘our grandparents told these stories. They were true.’”
collaborative media production
Relating to our forest
Ñukanchi Sacha Kawsaywa Aylluchiskamanda/Relaciones con nuestra selva/Relating to our Forest is a book and DVD collecting 15 stories that illuminate the ways speakers of Amazonian Kichwa in Napo, Ecuador relate to the forest and rivers that surround them. Through personal and ancestral narratives about the sacha runa, yaku runa, and supay—beings who inhabit the forests and rivers, and who control the plants and animals in them—these storytellers illustrate deeply personal relationships to an embodied, living environment. Produced in collaboration with elder members and young volunteers of the Association of Kichwa Midwives of Upper Napo with funding from the Ecuadorian Ministry of Culture and Patrimony, this text is part of a multimedia endeavor that leverages film, drawing, and textual formatting to reflect the verbal artistry of Amazonian Kichwa speakers. The stories are presented in Kichwa with Spanish and English translations.
transcription workshop with young volunteers of amupakin
Maria tapuy, ines tanguila, and maria antonia shiguango with their book
drawing workshop to illustrate the stories
Self-portrait by María Antonia Shiguango asking permission to harvest wanduk
Roberto Cerda prepares to record with marilin salazar
maria narvaez, catalina aguinda, and Angelina grefa prepare for a cultural presentation at AMUPAKIN
