Keynote Lecture 2017: Richard Chase-Smith

Keynote Lecture 2017

The Remarkable Power of Community, Collective Memory and Deep Historical Identity: Lessons Learned during a Half Century among Indigenous Peoples in South America

XI SALSA Sesquiannual Conference, Lima

Richard Chase Smith, Instituto del Bien Común

Richard Chase Smith delivered de Keynote Lecture 2017, titled “El Asombroso Poder de Comunidad, Memoria Colective e Identidad: Lecciones aprendidas durante medio siglo entre pueblos indígenas de Sud América”

Keynote Lecture 2017 Speaker

Richard Chase Smith, who has lived and worked in Peru for five decades, will be the keynote speaker for the XI Sesquiannual SALSA Conference in Lima. He first carried out field work in the late 1960s among the Yanesha people of the central Peruvian Amazon for his doctoral research in anthropology at Cornell University. He went on to co-found and direct Instituto del Bien Común (IBC), a non-government organization focused on indigenous peoples’ territorial rights. Due to IBC’s innovative use of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) to support indigenous peoples’ rights, he was recently declared a “GIS Hero” by ESRI, the makers of ArcView, the leading geographical information software. In this short interview, Dr. Smith reflects on his life and work in Peru and in anthropology.