Cabeceras Aid Project

Last updated: 6 November 2016

Our Fieldworkers

Montetoni Cabeceras Aid Project relies primarily on our two founding fieldworkers, Lev Michael and Christine Beier, to carry out our organization's community-oriented projects in the Amazon Basin. Chris and Lev founded Cabeceras Aid Project in 1996 as a mechanism for developing sustainable, practically oriented, and mutually beneficial relationships with small indigenous Amazonian groups, as those groups face the challenges presented by increasing or sustained contact with other societies, cultures, and languages. You can read more about them below.

Teamwork

In addition to Chris and Lev's participation in all of our field-based projects, Cabeceras is very proud that many of the language documentation projects developed by our organization rely on team-based field research. We would like to acknowledge the following participating fieldworkers:

Iquito Language Documentation Project (2002 through present, in alphabetical order)
Linguists Sisi Bautista Pizarro (now Licenciada); Marcus Berger, MA; Lynda (de Jong) Boudreault (now PhD); Mark Brown (now MA); Cynthia (Anderson) Hansen (now PhD); Taryne Hallett (now MA); Molly Harnisch (now MA); Edinson Huamancayo (now Licenciado); I-wen Lai (now PhD); Karina Sullón Acosta (now Licenciada); Briana (Grohman) Walther; Alison Zerbe; and ethnomusicologist Kathryn Metz (now PhD).
Máíhiki Project (2010 through present)
Linguists Stephanie Farmer (now PhD); Gregory Finley (now PhD); Elizabeth Goodrich; Kelsey Neely (now MA); Grace Neveu (now MA); Amalia Skilton (now MA); John Sylak-Glassman (now PhD).
Muniche Documentation Project (2009)
Linguists Stephanie Farmer (now PhD), Gregory Finley (now PhD), Michael Roswell, and Lic. Karina Sullón Acosta.
Omagua Documentation Project (2003, 2004, 2006, 2010, 2011)
Linguists Edinson Huamancayo (now Licenciado); Zachary O'Hagan (now MA); Clare Sandy (now ABD); Tammy Stark (now ABD); Briana (Grohman) Walther; and Vivian Wauters (now MA); and Katherine Clark.
Záparo Rapid Documentation Project (2010 through 2011)
Anthropologist Brenda Bowser, PhD; linguist Vivian Wauters (now MA).

Our founding fieldworkers

Cabeceras' founding fieldworkers Christine Beier and Lev Michael have carried out fieldwork for Cabeceras in Peru in 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2016. Over the years, they have collaborated with individuals from the following indigenous communities and languages: A'+wa (Vacacocha), Dekyunawa (Muniche), Iquito, Katsakati (Andoa), Máíjuna (on the language Máíhiki), Matsigenka, Nanti, Omagua, Sharanahua, Yabashta (Yaminawa), and Sápara (Záparo).

Please use the following links to access various reports written by Chris and Lev about Cabeceras' work; various products and results Cabeceras' fieldwork projects; and more information on the Iquito Language Documentation Project (ILDP)

Lev Michael is now an Associate Professor in the Linguistics department at the University of California at Berkeley; he has been teaching at Berkeley since August 2008. Click here to visit his faculty page and here to visit his blog Greater Blogazonia. Lev completed his PhD in the Linguistic Anthropology program at the University of Texas at Austin in May 2008.

Chris interviewing a Nanti woman Christine Beier completed her PhD in the Linguistic Anthropology program at the University of Texas at Austin in May 2010. She is now a volunteer fieldworker, project manager, and grant writer for Cabeceras; and an Assistant Adjunct Professor Linguistics department at the University of California at Berkeley; she has been teaching at Berkeley since August 2016. Information on Chris' research, including access to her dissertation, is available here. Contact Chris at: chris at cabeceras dot org.

While at UT-Austin, Lev and Chris were involved in the development of The Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America, a web-based archive of sound recordings and texts from diverse indigenous languages of Latin America. Please visit the AILLA website.

Products and results of Cabeceras' various language documentation projects are also gradually being added to the California Language Archive, maintained by the Survey of California and Other Indian Languages in the Linguistics department at the University of California at Berkeley.

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