Dr. Janet Chernela

Janet Chernela is widely regarded as a leading scholar in three related fields: 1) Indigenous peoples, NGOs and and Protected Areas in the Brazilian Amazon; 2) Gender and Language in Amazonia; and 3) Indigenous Rights and Intergovernmental Processes. Professor Chernela received her PhD from Columbia University in 1983 and served on the faculties of the National Amazonian Research Institute (INPA) in Brazil and Florida International University in Miami before coming to the University of Maryland in 2004.

Her principal publications include a book, A Sense of Space (1996,
University of Texas); the article "Language Ideology and Women's Speech: Talking Community in the Northwest Amazon (American Anthropologist 2003);" and "The Politics of Mediation: Local-Global Interactions in the Central Amazon of Brazil" (American Anthropologist 2006). Professor Chernela is the founder of AMARN, the oldest on-going indigenous association in Brazil; she is former chairperson of the American Anthropological Association Committee for Human Rights and former president of the Society of the Anthropology of Lowland South America.

Kayapo Field Course 2012 WEBSITE!

Recently, Dr. Chernela authored two articles:

(2011) The Second World of Wanano Women: Truth, Lies and Back-Talk in the Brazilian Northwest Amazon.  Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 21(2)193-210.

and

(2011) Barriers Natural and Unnatural: Islamiento as a Central Metaphor in Kuna Ecotourism. Bulletin of Latin American Research 30(1): 35–49.

Here is a PDF version of Dr. Chernela's CV.