Tuesday June 8, 2021
NAS Faculty Inés Hernández-Ávila (Nez Perce/Tejana) wins The Public Impact Research Initiative (PIRI)
The Public Impact Research Initiative (PIRI) was established through Public Scholarship and Engagement (PSE) to recognize and support research that is cogenerated with community partners, is of mutual benefit, and has a positive public impact.
luk’upsíimey/North Star Collective: Niimiipuu/Mayan Connections – Language Revitalization in Chiapas, Mexico
UC Davis leads: Professor Hernández-Ávila, Department of Native American Studies, College of Letters and Science
Collaborators: luk’upsíimey/North Star Collective; Beth Piatote, Department of Native American Studies, UC Berkeley
This particular project proposes what will be a historic collaboration between the luk'upsiimey/North Star Collective and Mayan writers in Chiapas, Mexico, with the intention of deepening our understandings regarding the over twenty-five year history of a flourishing movement of language revitalization through the promotion of creative writing currently underway in Chiapas, partly due to the San Andrés Accords that were signed between the Zapatista Army of National Liberation and the Mexican federal government. The San Andrés Accords were not honored by the Mexican government except for one point; the accords made possible the creation of CELALI, the state center for Indigenous Languages, Art, and Literature, instituted in 1997. Professor Hernández-Ávila's work has focused on Chiapas since CELALI's inception, and on the writers who are promoting language revitalization through the creation of literature in their languages, translated into Spanish. She has more than twenty years of experience in Chiapas, and a network of relations(hips) with these writers, artists, and community activists. We are excited about taking a Niimiipuu/Nez Perce delegation to Chiapas to engage with our Mayan counterparts about their work in language revitalization, to visit, with them as guides, select cultural centers in rural areas, to share our work(s) with each other, and to consider how we might embark on a joint publication, the first of its kind.
Read official press release here
Professor Hernández-Ávila was also awarded a DHI Network-Collaboration Fellowship for 2021-2022 for this project.
Link to Hernández-Ávila's faculty page here