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Linguistic Anthropology Commons™

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2023

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Articles 1 - 29 of 29

Full-Text Articles in Linguistic Anthropology

Into An Interference Zone: Childbirth And Care Among Mehinako People, Aline Regitano Nov 2023

Into An Interference Zone: Childbirth And Care Among Mehinako People, Aline Regitano

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

This article addresses issues of care and corporeality during gestation, childbirth, the postpartum period, and childcare through a case study conducted with Mehinako people. Among this Amazonian people, care forms the person, having an elementary function in the daily construction of kinship relations through means of affection. A recent trend has caused expressive transformations in the way women experience corporeality and the making of a person: the displacement of birth from the home to hospitals, motivated by women’s fear, desire, and curiosity. In the city, Indigenous women transit through medical institutions, which I propose may be read as interference zones …


Jean E. Jackson: A Pioneering Ethnographer In The Colombian Amazon, Patience Epps, Danilo Paiva Ramos, Flora Dias Cabalzar Nov 2023

Jean E. Jackson: A Pioneering Ethnographer In The Colombian Amazon, Patience Epps, Danilo Paiva Ramos, Flora Dias Cabalzar

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

This essay celebrates the work of Jean E. Jackson, a pioneering female ethnographer who devoted most of her fifty-year career to the Indigenous peoples of Colombia. Her research, represented in an extensive set of publications from the early 1970s to the present, engages with themes of identity, stigma, and social inequality, manifested across a range of contexts. Jackson’s ethnographic contributions include her ground-breaking early work on Indigenous Tukanoan society in the Colombian Vaupés, focusing on the practice of linguistic exogamy (obligatory marriage across language groups) among the Bará people. Later, she expanded her focus to address Indigenous experiences in the …


Multilingual Pantanal And Its Decay, Gustavo Godoy, Kristina Balykova Nov 2023

Multilingual Pantanal And Its Decay, Gustavo Godoy, Kristina Balykova

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

Historically, the Pantanal wetlands were inhabited by diverse ethnicities belonging to various linguistic groups, including Bororoan, Arawakan, Tupian, Gauicuruan, and Zamucoan, as well as some isolates and unclassified languages. Numerous ethnic groups disappeared without leaving any records of their languages, leaving behind only a list of ethnonyms. A point of confluence of different peoples that also circulated in other major South American areas, the Pantanal was a place with high linguistic diversity. Trade networks surrounded and permeated the area, as described in the earliest accounts by Portuguese and Spanish colonizers. As Indigenous groups were affected by colonial disputes over labor …


The Age Of The Onanya - Regarding The Spread Of Ayahuasca Use Throughout The Ucayali Basin, Carlos Suárez-Álvarez Nov 2023

The Age Of The Onanya - Regarding The Spread Of Ayahuasca Use Throughout The Ucayali Basin, Carlos Suárez-Álvarez

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

The spread of ayahuasca shamanism throughout the Upper Amazon has become a matter of debate among scholars since, in 1994, anthropologist Peter Gow formulated the controversial suggestion that it could be a recent phenomenon in the Ucayali basin, usually considered the stronghold of a millenary tradition. Following Gow, Brabec de Mori argued that the Shipibo-Conibo people, a paradigmatic example of the antique practice of ayahuasca shamanism, adopted both the brew and the associated shamanic practices in a “relatively recent” past. Gow and Brabec pointed at the Maynas missions as the origin of this shamanic complex, and the mestizo and Cocama …


Introduction: Indigenous Multilingualism In Lowland South America, Patience Epps Nov 2023

Introduction: Indigenous Multilingualism In Lowland South America, Patience Epps

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

Recent decades have seen an exponential growth in our understanding of the indigenous languages of lowland South America – from their structures and interrelationships to the dynamics of their day-to-day use and the ways they are conceptualized by their speakers. These advances highlight not only the diversity of languages in lowland South America, but also the complexity of the dynamics of interaction among speakers in multilingual settings. The region is home to a range of interactive indigenous ‘regional systems’, such as the Vaupés, Upper Xingu, and other areas, where multiple languages have thrived alongside each other for generations, and interaction …


Language, Exogamy And Ethnicity In The Upper Rio Negro Region, Thiago Chacon, Luis Cayón Nov 2023

Language, Exogamy And Ethnicity In The Upper Rio Negro Region, Thiago Chacon, Luis Cayón

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

In this article we explore how languages interact with exogamous social units (e.g., clans and phratries) and descent ideologies (such as having a common mythical ancestor and emergence from the same mythical place) to help organize the multilingual and interethnic societies from the Upper Rio Negro region (URN) in the Amazon. We show that the expected alignment of language boundary, exogamous group and descent group is actually quite unusual. Complex social structures involving the aggregation of clans into larger ethnic groups or marriage alliances with other clans have important variations in the alignment of language, exogamy, and descent ideology. Existing …


The Way Of Warriors: Annotated Narratives Of The Mebengokre (Kayapo) In Brazil, By Gustaaf Verswijver, John Hemming Nov 2023

The Way Of Warriors: Annotated Narratives Of The Mebengokre (Kayapo) In Brazil, By Gustaaf Verswijver, John Hemming

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

This is a review of The Way of Warriors: Annotated Narratives of the Mebengokre (Kayapó) in Brazil, by Gustaaf Verswijver. Turuti Books: Almería, Spain.


Vaupés Multilingualism And The Substance Of Language, Stephen Hugh-Jones Nov 2023

Vaupés Multilingualism And The Substance Of Language, Stephen Hugh-Jones

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

By focusing on ordinary conversational language, relying on a notion of “group” derived from unilineal descent theory, and neglecting mythology and ritual, studies of Vaupés Tukanoan multilingualism have inadvertently tended to reproduce a Western ideology of language as marking national identity and concerned with conveying meaning. This paper suggests that attention to musical, ritual, and shamanic contexts reveals multilingualism in a different light, with ritual speech acts as constitutive of social groups, names as vehicles of reproduction, and breath as a substance-like bodily element and source of vitality. The more esoteric, rhetorical, musical, or visual ornamentation is given to breath, …


Broadcasting La Presencia Latina: Tracing Identities Across Fields Of Interaction In Rural Minnesota, Anthony J. Harb Sep 2023

Broadcasting La Presencia Latina: Tracing Identities Across Fields Of Interaction In Rural Minnesota, Anthony J. Harb

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation project traces the concerted efforts of an emergent Latinx immigrant community in Westplain, Minnesota to construct and assert their individual and collective identities within the public sphere through a range of multimodal and face-to-face communicative resources. I address enduring questions within the fields of linguistic anthropology, language education, and Latinx (media) studies through a multi-sited ethnography centered around three focal field sites: (1) a Spanish-language community radio program I call La Gran Comunidad Latina (LGCL); (2) a college-level civic engagement Spanish conversation course titled Noticias Comunitarias (NC) designed and taught in partnership with LGCL; and (3) an antiracist …


"Where Is Your Accent From?": The Voice Of My Identity, Robert Northman Jul 2023

"Where Is Your Accent From?": The Voice Of My Identity, Robert Northman

Amplify: A Journal of Writing-as-Activism

This essay probes the role of language in how it contributes to the construct of one's identity. The author discusses lived experiences centered on the the perceptions of accented English that is actually African American Vernacular English. The essay explores how these experiences were formed and how they developed over the course of the author's lifetime. The author also discusses ways in which language has caused both comfort and conflict, and provides a glimpse into a unique perspective that can contribute to a greater understanding of the power and importance of language.


Nikole Uw!, Erin Catoggio, Aj Humenik, Emily Papagiannis, Alyssa Varga Jul 2023

Nikole Uw!, Erin Catoggio, Aj Humenik, Emily Papagiannis, Alyssa Varga

Games

Practice speaking, hearing, and moving in Munsee (Lenape)! This game is modeled after Simon Says and includes instructions, a caller's card, and a sample color wheel, all of which can be adapted to players' interests and abilities.


Kxanuw! (Miichuwaakan Waak Aweeyayusak), Kira Fucci, Camilla Bager Jul 2023

Kxanuw! (Miichuwaakan Waak Aweeyayusak), Kira Fucci, Camilla Bager

Games

Kxanuw! (I have it!) is modeled after bingo. This version allows players to practice plant and animal names, engaging listening comprehension, speaking, and visual recognition. The game kit includes instructions, a caller's card, and printable player cards.


Nii Neemun..., Johanna Tumux, Hannah Nosch Jul 2023

Nii Neemun..., Johanna Tumux, Hannah Nosch

Games

Nii Neemun... (I Spy...) is designed for use inside a classroom, where learners can practice hearing and naming the objects that surround them. This game includes a full set of instructions, a learner worksheet, and an answer key, as well as recommendations for adjusting play for beginning and more experienced participants.


The Fall And Rise Of Bengali Muslim Conciousness: Conceptualising The Identity Of The Bangla Universal, Habib Khan Jun 2023

The Fall And Rise Of Bengali Muslim Conciousness: Conceptualising The Identity Of The Bangla Universal, Habib Khan

Theses and Dissertations

The emergence of modern-nation states saw the end of the empirical era of exploitation and exercise of inherent racist tendencies towards the 'other'. However, the effect of that colonial system is still ever-present in the creation and governance of these newly independent states. While every new state aims to be 'modern', they adopt the international legal framework of the West as their own - a system they had initially wanted to escape. The concept of Muslim universality in the form of the ummah should have freed Pakistan from the shackles of its former colonial masters. Instead, this phenomenon was replaced …


Narrating & Living With Loss: Towards An Ethnography Of Grief, Fayrouz Ibrahim Jun 2023

Narrating & Living With Loss: Towards An Ethnography Of Grief, Fayrouz Ibrahim

Theses and Dissertations

Through this paper, I seek to approach grief through how it is lived, the nexus between loss, and the sought-for physical abstractions through memory, objects, and materials to live with/despite such a loss. This paper is a phenomenological and ethnographic research project on the curatory rituals and practices that individuals employ in keeping lost loved ones alive in their everyday. I explore grief through a multidisciplinary and multimodal conceptualization rather than simply through cultural and social practices such as burial and mortuary rituals. The research follows the grief narratives of different individuals in Egypt in inquiring about the objects, memories, …


Warp/Weft/Word: Inscriptive Materiality, Epistemological Violence, And The Inka Khipu, Travis Sharp Jun 2023

Warp/Weft/Word: Inscriptive Materiality, Epistemological Violence, And The Inka Khipu, Travis Sharp

Criticism

Many competing theories of the Indigenous inscription practice known as the khipu have been offered, from L. Leland Locke’s long-standing postulation that khipus are accounting devices, to Walter Ong’s description of them as aide-mémoire, to Gary Urton’s more experimental theory that they constituted an early form of binary composition. Just as fraught is the history of the khipu, which were utilized by the Inka, intermediated by Spanish and Catholic authorities in their legal and religious systems, and, finally, banned and burned as seditious and sacrilegious. Contemporary khipus are primarily limited to those used by herders, but Chilean American poet-artist Cecilia …


Marginal To Whom? Reflections On Gow’S "Purús Song", Magnus Course May 2023

Marginal To Whom? Reflections On Gow’S "Purús Song", Magnus Course

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

This paper constitutes a personal exploration of the impact of the work of Peter Gow on my own attempts to think through specific ethnographic problems, both in the Mapuche communities of Southern Chile and the Gaelic communities of Western Scotland. I focus in particular on how Gow’s lesser-known essay “Purús Song” inverts received wisdom about the relationships between center and periphery, and between nation-state and Indigenous people. I see this as one iteration of Gow’s broader aim of letting ethnographic realities transform theoretical complacencies.


Indigenous Transformations In The Comunidad Nativa: Rethinking Kinship And Its Limitations In An Expanding Resource Frontier, Evan Killick, Juan Pablo Sarmiento Barletti May 2023

Indigenous Transformations In The Comunidad Nativa: Rethinking Kinship And Its Limitations In An Expanding Resource Frontier, Evan Killick, Juan Pablo Sarmiento Barletti

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

In Of Mixed Blood, Peter Gow sets out an account of the transformations of kinship and the construction of social relations among Indigenous, mainly Yine (Piro), people of the Bajo Urubamba valley in the early 1980s, when Peru’s “Comunidades Nativas” (“Native Communities”) were receiving their new official titles. We revisit Peter’s proposition by comparing it our more recent ethnographic engagements with Indigenous Asháninka/Ashéninka communities in the region. While tracing continuities from his observations, we also show how social relations now play out in different ways, as certain important resources have become scarcer and the need for …


An Amazonianist And His History, Victor Cova, Juan Pablo Sarmiento May 2023

An Amazonianist And His History, Victor Cova, Juan Pablo Sarmiento

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

No abstract provided.


‘One Piro Man I Knew Well’: A Brief Commentary On An Amazonian Myth And Its History, Leif Grunewald May 2023

‘One Piro Man I Knew Well’: A Brief Commentary On An Amazonian Myth And Its History, Leif Grunewald

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

This is a book review for An Amazonian myth and History, to the special volume to honor Peter Gow.


Civilized Elders And Isolated Ancestors: The Multiple Histories Of Contemporary Amazonia, Casey High May 2023

Civilized Elders And Isolated Ancestors: The Multiple Histories Of Contemporary Amazonia, Casey High

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

In this article I consider the impact of Peter Gow’s writing on indigenous histories as a key area of research on Amazonia. Building on his study of kinship as history on the Bajo Urubamba (1991) he presented a regional perspective on the dynamic social categories by which Amazonian people understand their relations with various “others.” Focusing on indigenous agency and modes of thought, Gow challenged certain lines of historical thinking that dominated anthropology at the time. I explore how his ethnographic approach to history has influenced a generation of regional scholarship, including my own work on memory and social transformation …


Desire, Difference, And Productivity: Reflections On “The Perverse Child” And Its Continued Relevance, Christopher Hewlett May 2023

Desire, Difference, And Productivity: Reflections On “The Perverse Child” And Its Continued Relevance, Christopher Hewlett

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

This article is concerned with the relationships through which children have been born, raised, and made into Amahuaca people over the past 75 years, and within contemporary Native Communities on the Inuya River since their formation beginning in the 1980s. The process of making children into kin among Amahuaca people is similar to that described throughout much of lowland South America. The production, preparation, and sharing of proper food (manioc, plantains, fish, and game) as well as manioc beer are central aspects of sociality and the formation of specific kinds of bodies. While the processes of sharing substances, demonstrating care, …


Review: Of Mixed Blood, Luis Felipe Torres May 2023

Review: Of Mixed Blood, Luis Felipe Torres

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

The review revises the most inportant concepts of the book Of Mixed Blood.


Between Cocama And Modernity In The Ucamara (Peruvian Amazon), Marta Krokoszyńska May 2023

Between Cocama And Modernity In The Ucamara (Peruvian Amazon), Marta Krokoszyńska

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

Combining a contemporary ethnographic perspective with a review of historical records, the article extends Peter Gow’s re-reading of the ex-Cocama phenomenon in the Western Amazon. It argues that the foundation of the Amazonian Peruvian town of Requena at the beginning of the 20th century took place during an important historical moment in the region. Within the post-rubber boom context, schools became a particularly important idiom that enabled Requena’s growth as the centre of education and modernity. The paper investigates relations between the widespread desire for education in the Ucamara region, and Cocama descendants’ and other “ribereño” ex-Mainas peoples’ specific notions …


The Manito Topos Project: Place Naming And Toponymic Silencing In The Sierras Of Northern Nuevo México And Southern Colorado, Len N. Beké May 2023

The Manito Topos Project: Place Naming And Toponymic Silencing In The Sierras Of Northern Nuevo México And Southern Colorado, Len N. Beké

Spanish and Portuguese ETDs

This dissertation reports on documentary research on vernacular toponymies in Manito communities in Nuevo México and Colorado. These toponymies are erased, obscured and delegitimized in official maps. Within the study area, vernacular antecedents for 49.5% of official names for natural features were documented, along with 280 previously unmapped names. These data were compared to the state-sanctioned toponymy to determine a typology of linguistic mechanisms of toponymic silencing. While a majority of official toponyms are based on Manito oral tradition, only 15.4% of the labels for natural features represent unaltered versions of names in that tradition. This dissertation theorizes the conceptual …


Dungeons & Dragons: Fractals Of The Human Self, Katie Anderson Apr 2023

Dungeons & Dragons: Fractals Of The Human Self, Katie Anderson

Honors Theses

Dungeons & Dragons at its core is roleplay based storytelling, which implies the idea that the game is a work of fiction. While the world of Iad and the Free States of Tarvan does not exist on planet earth, the experiences and emotions felt by the players and their characters within the world are very much real. Players use extensions of themselves, their characters, to interact with the world around them, forging relationships and new lines of fate and destiny. Characters are fractals of their out of game personas, attached to one’s base personality and expanding outwards. The development of …


“Investment In Inertia”: Language Ideologies Of Instructors And Students Of Spanish As A Heritage Language, Michael E. Rolland Feb 2023

“Investment In Inertia”: Language Ideologies Of Instructors And Students Of Spanish As A Heritage Language, Michael E. Rolland

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

When the Spanish-language skills of heritage Spanish learners are disparaged in an academic environment, these learners are at high risk of abandoning further study of Spanish and shifting entirely to English. This dissertation uses mixed qualitative and quantitative research methods, including thematic and discourse analysis, to investigate the language ideologies of instructors and students of Spanish as a heritage language (SHL) and the effects of those ideologies on students’ experiences in SHL college courses. It builds on earlier research on language ideologies in the post-secondary heritage language context (e.g., Carreira, 2011; Loza, 2017; Valdés et al., 2003). I find that …


The Beauty Of Hip-Hop Culture: Linguistic Connections Through Music, Poetry, And Literature, Aminah Patel Jan 2023

The Beauty Of Hip-Hop Culture: Linguistic Connections Through Music, Poetry, And Literature, Aminah Patel

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This thesis enters the developing conversation in the linguistic domain about the culture and struggles of the Black community. It explores the collectivist perspective of the Black community in the 20th and 21st century through the umbrella of Linguistics and its subfields. Collectively, the literary and musical works in this study demonstrates the frustrations of the Black community—including its correlation to antebellum slavery—the lamentations of oppression, which showcases in a collection of poems and their syntactical aspects, and the Black pride emulating from the societies. Despite the clear correlation between Hip-Hop culture and literary works from the early …


Engaging Indigenous Community Towards A Talaandig Language Learning And Cultural Sustainability, Geraldine D. Villaluz, Rscj, Phd., Rita May P. Tagalog, Edd, Isrm, Aduna L. Saway Bai Jan 2023

Engaging Indigenous Community Towards A Talaandig Language Learning And Cultural Sustainability, Geraldine D. Villaluz, Rscj, Phd., Rita May P. Tagalog, Edd, Isrm, Aduna L. Saway Bai

ASEAN Journal of Community Engagement

The decreased use of indigenous language among the young generation of an indigenous community in the Southern Philippines has introduced apprehension among cultural practitioners, the chief administrator, and the community of elders. With the articulated need to strengthen language learning and sustain the culture among the young Talaandig members of the tribe, the chief administrator has proposed a community engagement process for addressing this concern. This study explores the Talaandig language learning and cultural sustainability through the active involvement of an indigenous community of parents–teachers, leaders, and culture practitioners of the Talaandig tribe in Bukidnon, Philippines. Indigenous research methods and …