What was your background before you came to Queen’s/ took on your new role?
After many years of practical work in development NGOs, I arrived from Peru for my graduate studies in Anthropology (Université Laval). Since then, I have spent my professional and academic life between Peru, Ecuador and Canada. I have been teaching in Canadian and South American Universities for the last five years: University of Ottawa (Anthropology, B.A. program), Université du Québec (Social Sciences of Development - B.A and M.A. programs), Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar (Global and Social Studies - Ph.D. program), Trent University (Development Studies - B.A. program), some workshops at Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú (Sociology - Ph.D. program) and, more recently, Universidad Central del Ecuador (Political Science - B.A. program).
What are your current research interests and goals for the upcoming year?
For the upcoming year, I am prioritizing the strengthening of the Indigenous Traditions academic branch in the department and publishing on the relationship to the environment, indigenous practices of weather forecasting, and sustainability ideologies. I will also definitely be planning a renewed research fieldwork period in the Andes after the current risks for indigenous groups in the context of COVID-19 dissipate.
What excites you most about your new role at Queen’s?
The perspective of developing new research projects in a vibrant scientific and academic community, and supported by the many efforts Queen’s deploys to help this is done successfully.
What course are you most excited about teaching this year and why?
“Things, Beings, and Indigenous Worlds”… a course that I will be teaching as RELS-227 and RELS-809 next semester, in the undergrad and graduate programs. This is very exciting for me because it is the first time I prepare a topic like that, and I think that my anthropological background on the indigenous relationship to the land will be broadened and well invested into more diverse kinds of objects, practices and questions. Isn’t it exciting to reflect on the very possibility of thinking things as no-things? Are some beings more “things” than other beings? Are some beings more subjects than other beings? What this network called “society” become when it is broadened to also include “things” beside human beings? And what about rights… Can these no-things be subjects of rights?
What is your favorite thing about Queen’s/Kingston so far?
Definitely, this Anishinaabeg and Haudenosaunee traditional territory. Living near their ancestral lakes, forests and rivers is simply awesome. Such fantastic places just push me to understand their own ways of relating to “nature” as I did for indigenous peoples in other settings.