Teaching the anthropology of childhood at the university of bristol, uk

Biography and Introduction I am a Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of Bristol, UK. My research focuses on the lives of children and youth in Amazonian Peru, where I have conducted ethnographic fieldwork over the past ten years working with indigenous Matses people. I specifically examine how children and youth participate in ongoing processes of socioeconomic change that are taking place across Latin America and beyond, and I demonstrate that by making active choices which often imply a shift from the lifestyle of older generations, children/youth are making active choices that will critically shape the future of their societies and of indigeneity more broadly. For example, I have demonstrated how indigenous Matses children are transforming their society’s economy and relationships with the environment by actively pushing for a shift from forest-based towards riverine livelihoods (2017); and how they are driving processes of rural-to-urban migration and the emergence of urban poverty in Amazonia (2015). My research approach is quintessentially child-centred, meaning that I address children as primary research participants in order to explore and bring out their own perspectives, voices and worldviews. To do this, I have developed a range of visual methods that can explore children’s imagination and knowledge beyond words, including drawing, participatory photography and co-production of animation. I am currently leading a new project—Animating the Future, fu

Agriculture · Citizen journalism · Ethnography · Geography · Indigenous · Latin Americans · Livelihood · Participatory action research · Political science · Poverty · Sociology · Anthropology · Children's Rights and Participation · Gender Studies · Participatory Visual Research Methods · Ecology