Echeverri, Juan Álvaro

    Universidad Nacional de Colombia (Sede Amazonía) 

     

    PhD in Anthropology (New School for Social Research, NY, 1997). Tenured Professor at the Amazon Headquarters of the National University of Colombia. Specialist in Amazonian indigenous populations, with work and research experience in social anthropology, ethnohistory, traditional knowledge, documentation and linguistic revitalization, indigenous education, indigenous territoriality, and ethnobotany.

     

    Lecture

    The Digital Archive of Indigenous Languages of the Amazon Region

     

    The Digital Archive of Indigenous Languages of the Amazon Region (ARDILIA) is an open repository of unpublished audiovisual materials in indigenous languages from the Amazonian region. The archive was created at the Amazonian Campus of the National University of Colombia (UNAL) as an initiative of the Research Seedbed “Casa Hija: Circles of the Word”within the research group on Amazonian Ethnology and Linguistics. The archive began with audio recordings of three languages: murui (uitoto), magütá (tikuna), and miraña, which were preserved cassettes under the custody of three members of the ARDILIA Group: Juan Alvaro Echeverri, Abel Antonio Santos (Magütá linguist), and Elio Miraña (Miraña researcher). The archive’s goal is to continue digitalizing analog recordings of other languages, currently kept in personal archives of many indigenous and non-indigenous researchers. These materials are often kept under inadequate storage conditions and susceptible to deterioration and loss. Making them accessible to the public is an invaluable asset for speakers of these languages and academic researchers. We hope the ARDILIA Archive will turn into a referennt for Amazonian languages, extending far beyond the Colombian borders.