Notice Board

Patrick C. Wilson is Associate Professor in the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics, head of its Hispanic Studies section, and research affiliate of the Prentice Institute. Trained as an anthropologist and Latin Americanist at the University of Pittsburgh, Wilson has conducted research in Amazonian Ecuador for 30 years with leaders and members of the Quijos Nation and the Napo Runa (Amazonian Kichwa). His areas of research interest include Indigenous social movements, Indigeneity and Indigenous Knowledge Systems, gender and development, and the cultural politics of development and conservation.  

In this talk, Dr. Wilson will present the preliminary outcomes of partnership building work among researchers from the University of Lethbridge, Universidad San Francisco de Quito (Ecuador) and Sacha Awana of the Indigenous Quijos Nation of Ecuador’s Amazon. The program of research emerging from this partnership examines issues of territorial sovereignty and women’s Indigenous leadership in the activation and application of Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Traditional Ecological Knowledge in processes of socioecological restoration. The partnership has subsequently evolved into a Nation-to-Nation and intersectoral cooperation including the Kainai Ecosystem Protection Association. He will also discuss some of the challenges of conducting research with Indigenous partners stemming from granting agencies’ funding structures and regulations.