Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award from Alexander von Humboldt Foundation for Colombian Anthropologist and Ethnolinguist Juan A. Echeverri
Visiting Researcher at Freie Universität Berlin and Ibero-American Institute Doing Research in Berlin on Transfer of Knowledge in the Amazon Region
№ 018/2015 from Jan 29, 2015
The Colombian anthropologist and ethnolinguist Prof. Dr. Juan A. Echeverri is the recipient of a Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. The award is endowed with 45,000 euros. Echeverri, who is based at Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Campus Amazonia, was proposed jointly by the literary scholar Prof. Dr. Susanne Klengel of the Institute for Latin American Studies (LAI), Freie Universität Berlin, and Dr. Barbara Göbel, the director of the Ibero-American Institute of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation. The award includes support for a research project to be carried out at the two institutions in Berlin during 2015. As of March Echeverri will be in Berlin doing research for the next nine months on "Transamazonian Transfer of Knowledge between Local and Global: The Materiality of Ethnography, Indigenous Literatures, and Memory."
According to the selection committee, Juan Echeverri’s utilization of various perspectives such as ethnolinguistics, literature, and ecology, has decisively influenced transcultural Amazonian research. His interdisciplinary priorities and his comprehensive empirical experience as an anthropologist are supplemented by close cooperation with indigenous authors, whom he often promotes in public discussions on the history, present, and future of Amazonia.
Echeverri is involved in international research projects, such as DOBES, a project funded by the Volkswagen Foundation to document endangered languages. The project is being carried out in collaboration with the Max Planck Institute of Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen, The Netherlands. As an internationally recognized expert in indigenous languages, such as Witoto, Echeverri has made key contributions to translating indigenous literatures and promoting recognition for indigenous languages and literatures. His research on indigenous genocide during the rubber boom in the early 20th century set the stage for further research in Amazonia that takes memories into account. During his stay in Berlin, Echeverri will be involved in the long-term interdisciplinary research on the Amazon region that is being done at the Institute for Latin American Studies (LAI) as well as the scholarly development of the unique collections of textual, video, and audio sources of the Ibero-American Institute.
LAI at Freie Universität Berlin is the largest institute devoted to research on Latin America at a university in the German-speaking countries. The Ibero-American Institute of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation is an independent research institution housing one of the largest libraries in the world devoted to Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain, and Portugal. A strategic partnership between the two institutions facilitates close cooperation in externally funded projects, publications, and events.
Press Image
This photo is available for journalists at
www.fu-berlin.de/presse/informationen/fup/2015/fup_12_018 . Journalists may use the image free of charge, provided due credit is given to Juan A. Echeverri.
Caption: Prof. Dr. Juan A. Echeverri (Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Amazonia Campus), winner of the Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation
Further Information
- Prof. Dr. Susanne Klengel, Institute for Latin American Studies, Freie Universität Berlin, Tel.: +49 30 838-55575, Email: klengel@zedat.fu-berlin.de
- Dr. Barbara Göbel, Ibero-American Institute of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, Tel.: +49 30 266-451300, Email: goebel@iai.spk-berlin.de