Kullin Yaku: The living river and its relations in the Ecuadorian Amazon
Speaker: Fredy Grefa
Date: November 21, 2024
Time: 6:00PM
Address: Room 1005, Global Education Center
Fredy Rafael Grefa Andi is a first-generation Napo Runa in receiving a Ph.D. in Geography at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA, in 2020. He received a MA in Latin American Studies from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a MA in City and Regional Planning from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Currently, he is a professor at the Sociology and International Relations Departments at Universidad San Francisco de Quito (USFQ), Ecuador. His scholarship takes an environmental humanities approach and uses Indigenous concepts of human-environment relations, such as Sumak Kawsay and the Living Forest, to analyze how Amazonian peoples engage with, contest, and inform global conservation programs. He is a member of the OCKIL (Organization of Kichwa Communities of Loreto). He worked as environmental and community affairs supervisor in private oil companies in the Ecuadorian Amazon and as undersecretary for SENPLADES (Ecuadorian Planning Secretariat for Planning and Development) for the provinces of Pichincha, Napo and Orellana. He also served as Director of Environmental Management at Yachay Public Company and has collaborated with Indigenous grassroots organizations in the Ecuadorian Amazon, such as CONFENIAE and COICA.
Campus Life Experience Credit will be available.
