Rubber Boom and Amazonian Ethnohistory with Simon Overall (Otago)

Simon Overall is Senior Lecturer in the department of English and Linguistics at the University of Otago/Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka, in New Zealand.

Dr. Overall's research interests have two main threads. Firstly, Amazonian languages, in particular those of northwest Peru, and their historical connections with other Amazonian and Andean languages. Secondly, his work in grammatical description relates to larger concerns with how individual and cultural knowledge are expressed through language, and what are the interpersonal and cultural factors that interact with diachronic processes of language change.

He has extensive fieldwork experience with Aguaruna (known to its speakers as Iiniá Chicham), a language in the small Chicham family (formerly known as Jivaroan), spoken by about 55,000 people in Peru's Amazonas and Loreto regions; and Kandozi-Chapra (Candoshi-Shapra), an isolate spoken on the Morona and Pastaza rivers in Loreto, Peru.

Interviewer:
Austin Howard is pursuing a doctorate in linguistics. He specialises in the intersection of cognitive science, anthropology and language sciences, using fieldwork to elucidate the interaction of culture and cognition. He is an ardent fan of poetry, theatre and language-learning. Puns and all forms of humour keep his mind sharp and his spirits high. Austin is an avid collector and taster of teas and other infusions. His masters and internships were completed in the Netherlands (MA from Radboud University Nijmegen and subsequent research assistantship at Leiden University) and Austria (Austrian Academy of Sciences). His recent work has taken him from the edges of Anatolia to the rainforests of the Amazon.

Rubber Boom film: Fitzcarraldo by Werner Herzog.
   • Fitzcarraldo  

#amazonia
#anthropology
#ethnography
#linguistics
#asmr