Círculo Andino is pleased to welcome back long-time member Nick Emlen, a doctoral student in linguistic anthropology, who will present on his dissertation research in Peru. Nick will be discussing:
The two modernities of Yokiri
The lives of Matsigenkas and colonists on the Andean-Amazonian agricultural frontier of Southern Peru are undergoing profound transformations. On the one hand, members of the small community of Yokiri have recently begun to interact with the state by defending their land through the legal system and by demanding (in Spanish) public investments such as schools, health posts, electricity, and roads. On the other hand, they have also begun to engage in the practices of rural agrarian sociality, such as establishing relationships of compadrazgo with neighboring colonists, chewing coca, speaking Quechua, listening to Andean music, and performing Andean-style dances. But while in many parts of Peru these two domains of sociality are interpreted in terms of an opposition between modernity and tradition (and other such binaries), Yokiriños consider them both to be "modern." The entrance of indigenous Amazonians into the agrarian campesinado is a very complex process, and Yokiriños appear to distinguish two separate but related domains of modernity, each related to a distinct economy of cultural and linguistic practices. I am just beginning a dissertation chapter on the interactional context of community meetings (the primary site for the first type of modernity), and in this presentation I will offer some preliminary findings.
Lunch will be provided.
Tuesday, October 8
12 - 1pm
242 West Hall