Norman E. Whitten, Jr. | |
---|---|
Born | |
Nationality | American |
Occupation(s) | Anthropologist, academic, and author |
Awards | John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship Beckman Institute Research Award Research Award, Spurlock Museum |
Academic background | |
Alma mater | Colgate University University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill |
Academic work | |
Institutions | Washington University in St. Louis University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign |
Norman E. Whitten,Jr. (born May 23,1937) is an American cultural anthropologist who is Professor Emeritus of Anthropology and Latin American Studies at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign,and Curator of the Spurlock Museum of World Cultures. He is known for books based on his anthropological field work and his research on the Afro-Latin and Indigenous peoples of the West Coast rainforest and upper Amazon Rain forest,most notably the Black population and Canelos Quichua and Achuar Peoples. [1]
Whitten is the author and editor of several books,including Patterns Through Time:An Ethnographer's Quest and Journey, [2] Histories of the Present:People and Power in Ecuador,From Myth to Creation:Art from Amazonian Ecuador,Puyo Runa:Imagery and Power in Modern Amazonia,and Millennial Ecuador:Critical Essays on Cultural Transformations and Social Dynamics. [3] Working in Ecuador since 1961,Whitten and his wife,Dorothea Scott Whitten (1930–2011),has cofounded the Sacha Runa Research Foundation,a non-profit organization to support research among ethnically identifiable peoples of Ecuador,and to promote recognition of aesthetic values and cultural traditions of these peoples. Whitten is a Fellow of American Anthropological Association, [4] Society of Cultural Anthropologists,Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland,American Association for the Advancement of Science,and Society for Applied Anthropology. [5] He edited the Journal American Ethnologist for five years,and the book series Interpretations of Culture in the New Millennium for over twenty years,and together with Dorothea,he has organized museum exhibitions in North and South America,including a permanent exhibit of over 450 objects at the University of Illinois's Spurlock Museum of World Cultures. [6] [7]
Whitten was born in 1937 in Orange,New Jersey. He graduated from Colgate University in 1959 with a Bachelor of Science in anthropology and sociology. He then enrolled at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,and earned his Master’s and Doctoral degrees in anthropology in 1961 and 1964,respectively. [8]
Whitten started his academic career in 1964 as an Acting Assistant Professor at the University of North Carolina,Chapel Hill. In 1964,he was a research fellow at Tulane University working through the International Center for Medical Research and Training in Cali,Colombia. In the following year,he held an appointment at Washington University in St. Louis,as an Assistant Professor,and was promoted to Associate Professor from 1968 till 1970. During this time period,he was also concurrently appointed as a Visiting Associate Professor at University of California,Los Angeles in 1979-70. In 1970,he joined the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign as an Associate Professor,and then was promoted to Professor in 1973,and became Professor of Latin American Studies in 1987. [1] Between 1988 and 1992,he served there as a Professor of Campus Honors. He also served as an adjunct professor of Anthropology and International Studies at the Universidad San Francisco de Quito (Ecuador) and has served on its Board of Trustees since 2006. [9]
During his tenure at the University of Illinois,Whitten was the Department Head of Anthropology from 1983 to 1986,and the Director of the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies from 2000 till 2003. He has been serving as a curator for the Spurlock Museum of World Cultures since 1998. [8]
Whitten is on Board of Trustees for Universidad San Francisco de Quito—US (Miami) extension. In 1966,he was appointed as a Chairman of the American Anthropological Association subcommittee on ethics and international research for Ecuador and Colombia. From 1967 to 1975,he was elected to the Executive Board of Central States Anthropological Society,and also served as President of the society,and Program Chairman of Central States Anthropological Meetings (Cleveland). [8]
Whitten’s earlier research career was focused primarily on performing ethnographic studies with African American peoples in North Carolina,Nova Scotia (Canada),Ecuador and Colombia,endeavoring to expand the range of African American Studies. From 1968 through 2019,he along with his wife,(until she died in 2011) did ethnographic research in the Upper Amazonian region of Ecuador,with the Indigenous Canelos Quichua and Achuar Jivaroan people,focusing particularly on their cultural systems in contexts of radical transformations stemming from forces of the national political-economic system. Publications on Upper Amazonian peoples include areas of social structure,cultural ecology,and cosmology. [10]
Whitten has published many books and essays on topics related to social organization,power structure and dynamics,ethnoaesthetics,and cultural imagery. He also works to explore cultural transformations,national development,ethnic-bloc formation,millennial movements,political democracy and social movements in the context of South America and African Diaspora. [10] His book,titled Class,Kinship and Power in an Ecuadorian Town:The Negroes of San Lorenzo [11] describes the social life of a black community in the town of San Lorenzo,while highlighting its transition from traditional culture to rationalized society. [12] Julian Pitt-Rivers considers the book to be an "excellent work in itself" which not only to entails "the conversion of an agricultural and fishing community into a railhead and port," but also tends to discuss "the arrival of a large number of highlanders…" [13] An American anthropologist Marvin Harris is of the view that Whitten’s choice of a significant subject matter in the book "obscures the pioneering nature of the research here reported on,for there are no studies available which could provide a baseline literature." [14] William F. Sharp,reflecting on another of Whitten’s book Black Frontiersmen:A South American Case in Hispanic American Historical Review wrote that the book is "rich in descriptive detail concerning black frontiersmen in western Colombia and northwestern Ecuador." [15]
In his book Sicuanga Runa:The Other Side of Development in Amazonian Ecuador,Whitten examined the impacts of national development policy on a group of Quichua- and Achuar-speaking Indigenous people. Michael T. Hamerly regarded the book as a "significant work" which is solely based on ethnographic observation of and interaction with Canelos and other Indian groups of the upper Amazon. While commenting on the linguistic aspects of the book,Hamerly stated that the author of the book seems to address himself mostly to "his colleagues,advocates and critics of structuralism,notwithstanding his claim that he wrote Sicuanga runa for nonspecialists." [16] In his memoir Patterns Through Time:An Ethnographer's Quest and Journey, Whitten narrates his journey of life through many different perspectives,expanding research foci,and a wide range of professional influences. According to Karl H. Schwerin,this biographical memoir seems to be the “tracing of the circuitous theoretical trajectory.” [17]
Whitten edited five volumes of the American Ethnologist (Volumes 7-11) that included four special issues. From 2002 he has edited the book series for the University of Illinois Press Interpretations of Culture in the Millennium,.
Whitten currently resides in Urbana,Illinois,USA. While studying at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,he met Dorothea (Sibby) Scott,a master's student in sociology. The two married on August 2,1962,and have no children together. Scott died on August 8,2011. [18]
In recognition of contributions of Whitten,and his late wife,in the field of anthropology/ethnology,a named gallery in the Spurlock Museum was renamed to The Dorothea S. and Norman E. Whitten Gallery of Central and South American People in 2012. Major exhibitions organized by Witten are as follows:
Demographic features of the population of Ecuador include population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.
Amazonas is a state of Brazil, located in the North Region in the north-western corner of the country. It is the largest Brazilian state by area and the ninth-largest country subdivision in the world. It is the largest country subdivision in South America, being greater than the areas of Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay combined. Neighbouring states are Roraima, Pará, Mato Grosso, Rondônia, and Acre. It also borders the nations of Peru, Colombia and Venezuela. This includes the Departments of Amazonas, Vaupés and Guainía in Colombia, as well as the Amazonas state in Venezuela, and the Loreto Region in Peru.
The Shuar, also known as Jivaro, are an indigenous ethnic group that inhabits the Ecuadorian and Peruvian Amazonia. They are famous for their hunting skills and their tradition of head shrinking, known as Tzantsa.
Arawakan, also known as Maipurean, is a language family that developed among ancient indigenous peoples in South America. Branches migrated to Central America and the Greater Antilles in the Caribbean and the Atlantic, including what is now the Bahamas. Almost all present-day South American countries are known to have been home to speakers of Arawakan languages, the exceptions being Ecuador, Uruguay, and Chile. Maipurean may be related to other language families in a hypothetical Macro-Arawakan stock.
Záparo is a nearly dead language spoken by the Sápara, or Záparo, people of Ecuador. As of 2000, it was spoken by only one person out of a total population of 170 in Pastaza Province, between the Curaray and Bobonaza rivers. Záparo is also known as Zápara and Kayapwe. The members of the Záparo ethnic group now speak Quichua, though there is a language revival effort beginning. Záparo is sometimes confused with Andoa, though the two languages are distinct. Záparo has a subject–verb–object word order.
Kichwa is a Quechuan language that includes all Quechua varieties of Ecuador and Colombia (Inga), as well as extensions into Peru. It has an estimated half million speakers.
Media Lengua, also known as Chaupi-shimiChaupi-lengua, Chaupi-Quichua, Quichuañol, Chapu-shimi or llanga-shimi, is a mixed language with Spanish vocabulary and Kichwa grammar, most conspicuously in its morphology. In terms of vocabulary, almost all lexemes (89%), including core vocabulary, are of Spanish origin and appear to conform to Kichwa phonotactics. Media Lengua is one of the few widely acknowledged examples of a "bilingual mixed language" in both the conventional and narrow linguistic sense because of its split between roots and suffixes. Such extreme and systematic borrowing is only rarely attested, and Media Lengua is not typically described as a variety of either Kichwa or Spanish. Arends et al., list two languages subsumed under the name Media Lengua: Salcedo Media Lengua and Media Lengua of Saraguro. The northern variety of Media Lengua, found in the province of Imbabura, is commonly referred to as Imbabura Media Lengua and more specifically, the dialect varieties within the province are known as Pijal Media Lengua and Angla Media Lengua.
Donald Ward Lathrap was an American archaeologist who specialized in the study of neolithic American culture. He was a Professor of Anthropology at the University of Illinois at the time of his death.
The Urarina are an indigenous people of the Peruvian Amazon Basin (Loreto) who inhabit the valleys of the Chambira, Urituyacu, and Corrientes Rivers. According to both archaeological and historical sources, they have resided in the Chambira Basin of contemporary northeastern Peru for centuries. The Urarina refer to themselves as Kachá, while ethnologists know them by the ethnonym Urarina.
Bride service has traditionally been portrayed in the anthropological literature as the service rendered by the bridegroom to a bride's family as a bride price or part of one. Bride service and bride wealth models frame anthropological discussions of kinship in many regions of the world.
The William R. and Clarice V. Spurlock Museum, better known as the Spurlock Museum, is an ethnographic museum at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The Spurlock Museum's permanent collection includes portions of collections from other museums and units on the Urbana-Champaign campus such as cultural artifacts from the Museum of Natural History and Department of Anthropology as well as historic clothing from the Bevier Collection of the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences. The museum also holds objects donated by other institutions and private individuals. With approximately 51,000 objects in its artifact collection, the Spurlock Museum at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign collects, preserves, documents, exhibits, and studies objects of cultural heritage. The museum's main galleries, highlighting the ancient Mediterranean, modern Africa, ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, East Asia, Oceania, Europe, and the Americas, celebrate the diversity of cultures through time and across the globe.
Carlos Antonio Vargas Guatatuca is an indigenous Quechua politician of Ecuador. He was leader of the Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas de Ecuador (CONAIE) and Minister for Social Welfare under president Lucio Gutiérrez from 2003 to 2005.
Amazonian Kichwas are a grouping of indigenous Kichwa peoples in the Ecuadorian Amazon, with minor groups across the borders of Colombia and Peru. Amazonian Kichwas consists of different ethnic peoples, including Napo Kichwa and Canelos Kichwa. There are approximately 419 organized communities of the Amazonian Kichwas. The basic socio-political unit is the ayllu. The ayllus in turn constitute territorial clans, based on common ancestry. Unlike other subgroups, the Napo Kichwa maintain less ethnic duality of acculturated natives or Christians.
Steven Lee Rubenstein was an American anthropologist. He was reader in Latin American Anthropology at the University of Liverpool, and Director of Liverpool's Research Institute of Latin American Studies.
Asociación de Negros Ecuatorianos (ASONE) is a foundation for the Social and Cultural Development of Afro-Ecuadorians in Ecuador. It was established on 30 January 1988. The president as of 2012 was Daniel Cañola.1
Runa Foundation is a public, non-profit organization with offices in Brooklyn, NY; Quito, Ecuador; Archidona, Ecuador; and Tarapoto, Peru. Runa Foundation's stated mission is to "create new value for tropical forests that benefit local people and the forest ecosystem". Runa Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation registered in the state of Rhode Island.
Joanna Overing is an American anthropologist based in Scotland. She has conducted research on egalitarianism, indigenous cosmology, philosophical anthropology, aesthetics, the ludic and linguistics through fieldwork in Amazonia. She has extensively studied indigenous Piaroa people in the Orinoco basin of Venezuela.
Janis Nuckolls is an American anthropological linguist and professor of linguistics and English language at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. She has spent many years doing field research, with a primary focus on the Amazonian Quichua (Kichwa) people in Ecuador and their endangered language.
Ana Maria Duran Calisto is an Ecuadorean architect, urbanist, and environmental planner who founded Estudio A0 with her husband and partner the architect Jaskran "Jazz" Kalirai in Quito, Ecuador.
Aguinda v. Texaco, Inc. was a class-action lawsuit against Texaco Petroleum. It was filed in 1993 by American human rights lawyer Steven Donziger on behalf of indigenous collectives in the Ecuadorian Amazon. The lawsuit sought compensation for "alleged environmental and personal injuries arising out of Texaco's oil exploration and extraction operations in the Oriente region between 1964 and 1992." Legal proceedings followed in courts in Ecuador and the United States for about a decade. The case was dismissed on May 30, 2001, on grounds of forum non conveniens.