Meredith Cristina Castro Rios
Winner of the Norm and Sibby Whitten Research Fund 2022-2023
Between smiles and masato: an approach to the values of the Shawi people through laughter
Based on the approaches of the anthropology of emotions and the anthropology of humor, this study seeks, through the study of laughter, to approach both the valuations of the Shawi people and the understanding of their ethos, understanding this as their ways of life and behavior. In this sense, through this approach, my research seeks to contribute to the knowledge of local indigenous meanings and to the understanding of the values that govern the social life of the Shawi.
About Meredith Cristina Castro Rios
Meredith Cristina Castro Rios is a master student from the Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales FLACSO – Ecuador Campus). She was granted 800 USD.
Final Report
Summary
With the support of the Norm and Sibby Whitten Research Fund I was able to finance the pre-field phase of my master’s thesis, research in which I address laughter and values in the Shawi people. During the pre-field, I not only resumed contacts and established new support networks that were important during my fieldwork, but I was also able to talk about my research project and, mainly, I was able to present it to the community and obtain their consent to develop my research.
