Cultural Heritage

The overall objectives of these projects is to contribute to the public visibility of indigenous communities, highlighting their artistic-symbolic production, and helping Chilean society to recognize the cultural history and aesthetical presence of original cultures. What we expect is the recognition, retribution, and integration of indigenous communities on the base of commitment with the indigenous culture, promoting the construction of a renewed concept of national identities that reflect the regional and ethnic diversity of Chile.

This line of investigation adopts a multidisciplinary approach in the study of heritage, including ethnolinguistics, ethnomusicology, history, archeology, and biological anthropology, to combine different scientific perspectives in order to understand multiple dimensions of cultural, ethnic, historical, archeological, and bio-anthropoligical heritage.

The management of their own heritage, tangible and intangible, is a determinant element in their social, political, cultural and ethnic identity, and of their memory. Therefore, recovering control and possession of heritage is crucial in the negotiation and cultural resistance when facing the threat of cultural assimilation of global society.

Researchers

Pedro Mege

Principal Researcher

Ph.D. in Latin American Studies, he has focusedo n the areas of Ethnolinguistics and Semiotics. His field of specialization has been Mapuche culture, especially their textiles, the desert culture associated to life in minig camps and indigenous photography in Chile.

Luis Campos

Principal Researcher

Ph.D. in Anthropology, former President of the Chilean National Association of Anthropologists. In line with his studies, he has specialized in anthropologic theory, anthropology of religion, and on original peoples. He has carried out field work with indigenous peoples from Chile, Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina. Professor of the UAHC.

Felipe Martínez

Associate Researcher

Ph.D. in Biological Anthropology. Assistant Professor in biological anthropology at PUC.His interest cover a rage of topics related to human diversity and evolution. He has been involved in numerous archeological fieldworks and conducted research related to the practice of intentional cranial deformation in archeological populations from the Atacama Desert, Chile.

Paula Miranda

Associate Researcher

Ph.D. in Literatura. She has specialized in Chilean and Hispanoamerican poetry. Her projects of research deal with Chilean twentieth century poetry, focusing on its artistic and social context and its aesthetic particularity, paying special attention to territorial, identitorial and landscape aprehensions. She has also specialized in Prehispanic literature and in Canto a lo Poeta, Chilean traditional music and poetry.

Allison Ramay

Adjunct researcher

Ph.D. in Hispanic Language and Literature. Assistant Professor at UC.

Margarita Alvarado

Adjunct researcher

Design (Interior and Furniture Design), U. de Chile, Graduated in Aesthetics UC.

Francisco Gallardo

Adjunct researcher

Graduated in Anthropology with mention in Archeology.

Olaya Sanfuentes

Adjunct researcher

Master in Art History, Georgetown University. Professor at UC.

Joseph Gómez

Associate Researcher

Ph.D. in Museology. Among his topics of interest are: Cultural heritage and cultural identity in Latin America: museum networks; musealization processes; museographic speeches; outsider heritage and new  spaces for the expression of cultural inheritance and memory.

Alejandro Bilbao

Adjunct researcher

Master’s degree in Fundamental Psychopathology and Psychoanalysis at the Paris Diderot University.

Bastien Sepúlveda

Postdoctoral Researcher

Ph.D. in Geography. His works are part of the field of indigenous geographies. He has conducted research in Chile and in Canada where he has made a postdoctoral stay between 2012 and 2013. Currently, he is interested in the dynamics of indigenous territorial rearrangements in urban areas, focusing more specifically on the case of the Mapuche in Chile.

Fernanda Kalazich

Postdoctoral Researcher

Ph.D. in Archeology. She has a doctor’s degree in archeology. Her research interests are related to the emergency of community museums, participatory methodologies in archeology, indigenous valuations and perceptions of heritage, and in general, notions of heritage build from the ground up.