Our research collection is managed and maintained by an interdisciplinary team of undergraduate and graduate student kawsay waqaychaqkuna (those who safeguard, keep and preserve with cariño and care), working under faculty supervision.
Gabe Rosenberg
Gabe is a senior studying Communications with aspirations of pursuing a future in law. His deep curiosity drives him to explore and gain a richer understanding of Andean culture and artifacts, a passion that fuels his academic and personal growth. He thrives in collaborative environments, enjoying the opportunity to work with others and exchange ideas. Excited for the Kawsay Ukhunchay journey, Gabe is eager to immerse himself in the knowledge and traditions that this experience offers, further expanding his appreciation for cultural heritage.
Max Jensen
Max’s main interests are Kichwa language and culture in the Ecuadorian Amazon and its contact with Spanish. This is a contemporary culture, living and breathing, evidenced by some of the items in our collection. Max has developed close relationships that will last a lifetime with people who speak this language and have been gracious enough to share it with him.
Lily Crider
Lily is a high-school senior interested in studying a combination of History, Anthropology, and Spanish in college. She is keen on pursuing a career in museum and curatorial studies. She is excited to participate in the Kawsay Ukhunchay Research Collection to learn more about how to engage with cultural artifacts with a decolonial mindset (and especially what that means for museums going forward.) During her free time, she enjoys listening to music, running, and cooking.
Fé Beatty
Fé Beatty (they/them) is a first-year undergraduate pursuing a Music Performance degree in Classical Guitar, an English degree in Creative Writing, and minors in Theatre and Dance. They are most interested in studying the interactions between storytelling, music, and expression in musical theatre, and aspire to broaden their understandings and connections within the arts as much as possible. Within Kawsay Ukhunchay, Fé is working to create a children’s book telling the story of Fox and Yutu Bird as told in the weavings by Mama Santusa housed with the Collection.
Additionally, Fé participates in the Andean Music Ensemble, and recently joined the English department’s theatre company (Lord Denny’s Players) as both the music director and an actor. Beyond, Fé enjoys exploring dance, engaging with folklore studies, singing, and doing drag.
Leah Goldenberg
Leah Goldenberg is a fourth year undergraduate student at The Ohio State University studying Spanish and Bioethics. Through her studies, she has recently explored the intersection of decolonizing research with linguistic diversity and is particularly interested in how science and the humanities converge in different spaces. Her research interests center on the ethics of digitizing and archiving Indigenous cultural artifacts and knowledge. Her background in both science and humanities allows her to approach these topics with a unique and analytical perspective. A summer study abroad experience in Spain further deepened her understanding of language, culture, and history. Her passion for Andean art, history, and culture was sparked by a course taught by Dr. Wibbelsman, ultimately leading her to join this group.
Victor Vimos
Victor Vimos is an anthropologist currently studying in the Ph.D. program at The Ohio State University. His research is focused on the Andean zone, between studies of rituality and poetic languages. His book Acta de Fundación received the second Premio Internacional de Poesía Pedro Lastra in 2020.
Kareen Darwich
Kareen is a current undergraduate majoring in Health Sciences with a minor in Spanish. She aspires to pursue a career in dentistry upon completing her degree. With a diverse background stemming from her Lebanese-Venezuelan heritage, she has cultivated an appreciation for various cultures and traditions. Kareen’s passion for exploring new parts of the world was evident when she had the opportunity to study abroad in Costa Rica over the summer, where she honed her Spanish language skills with native speakers. She also journeyed to Lebanon to utilize her Arabic language skills.
In her role as a curator on her team, Kareen aims to bridge her expertise in the healthcare field with indigenous healing practices. She eagerly anticipates the opportunity to compare the Western Medical Model with the diverse healing modalities she encounters during her research. She firmly believes that integrating different medical approaches into our healthcare system can contribute to enhanced overall well-being in society.
John Hurtado
John Hurtado is a graduate student in the doctoral program in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese. His research focuses on community cinema in Colombia.
Ivan Ng
Ivan Ng is a Graduate Student in the Master of Fine Arts program at Ohio State University.
Michelle Wibbelsman
Michelle Wibbelsman is Associate Professor of Latin American Indigenous Cultures, Ethnographic Studies and Ethnomusicology in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at The Ohio State University. She holds courtesy faculty appointments in the School of Music and the Department of Anthropology and directs the OSU Andean Music Ensemble. Dr. Wibbelsman specializes in the expressive culture of indigenous peoples of the Andean highlands. She has conducted fieldwork in her native country of Ecuador since 1995 and is the author of Ritual Encounters: Otavalan Modern and Mythic Community (2009) as well as articles on topics including religion and ritual; musical expression; public festivals; history, myth and memory; performance and politics; aesthetics and power; intra- and inter-ethnic conflict; ritual violence; indigenous transnational migration; Andean and Amazonian epistemologies; and alternative pedagogies.
As Faculty Curator of the Andean and Amazonian Indigenous Art and Cultural Artifact Collection at Ohio State, Dr. Wibbelsman works closely with student curators to care for the collection, develop undergraduate student research projects, faculty-student and student-student collaborations, conference presentations and workshops. Our endeavor as a team revolves around making the collection more visible and accessible, useful for classroom use, a resource for research and teaching, and above all presenting new ways of engaging with indigenous cultural knowledge and practices.
Dr. Wibbelsman is also lead Co-PI (Principal Investigator) of the K’acha Willaykuna Andean and Amazonian Indigenous Arts and Humanities Collaboration (https://globalartsandhumanities.osu.edu/cross-disciplinary-research-focus-areas/immobility/kacha-willaykuna) under Ohio State’s Global Arts and Humanities Discovery Theme. This interdisciplinary research initiative has enabled short-term Andean and Amazonian artist residencies that foster critical encounters with indigenous artists and artisans who can comment on, contribute to, and critique our work with the Andean and Amazonian Indigenous Art and Cultural Artifact Collection as well as interact with broader publics on pressing topics of cultural understanding.
In her free time, she enjoys spending time with her son, Kai, playing music, being involved with her community, playing soccer, sledding, skiing the bunny hills and working on collaborative projects.
Select list of publications:
Books
Ritual Encounters: Otavalan Modern and Mythic Community, Ethnographic Series: Interpretations of Culture in the New Millennium. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2009.
Encuentros rituales: la comunidad mítica y moderna de los otavalos. (Spanish translation of Ritual Encounters, 2009). Columbus: AlterNativas E-Book Series, 2015. ISBN: 978-1-941373-03-3 http://alternativas.osu.edu/es/ebooks/catalog.html
Articles and Chapters in Edited Volumes
“Northern Andean Cosmology and Otavalan Hip Hop” in The Andean World, edited by Kathleen Fine-Dare and Linda Seligmann. Routledge, 2019.
“Gender Performativity and Indigenous Conceptions of Duality in the Inti Raymi-Jatun Puncha Festivals of Cotacachi, Ecuador” in The Routledge Companion to Gender, Sex and Pop Culture in Latin America, edited by Frederick Aldama. Routledge, 2018.
“Andean and Amazonian Material Culture and Performance Traditions as Sites of Indigenous Knowledges and Memory” in TRANSMODERNITY: Journal of Peripheral Cultural Production of the Luso-Hispanic World Special Issue: Indigenous Knowledges and Sites of Indigenous Memory. Spring 2017 (7:1) https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5223g28c
“Otavalan Transnational Music Making: The Andean Music Scene in Japan” in Made in Latin America. Studies in Popular Music, edited by Christian Spencer and Julio Mendívil. Routledge Global Popular Music Series. Routledge Press, 2016.
“Purijkuna Otavalan Transnational Migrants: Indigenous Global Mobility and the Politics of Destination” in ALTER/NATIVAS Latin American Cultural Studies Journal Special Issue: New Approaches to Transnational Migration and Cultural Change. Autumn 2016 (7) http://alternativas.osu.edu/en/issues/autumn-7-2016/essays#/wibbelsman.html
“La pugna de los aciales: Batallas rituales y el papel de la violencia en el contexto del Inti Raymi, Cotacachi, Ecuador” in Sarance No. 34, Winter 2015.
“Encuentros rituales—Las danzas del Inti Raymi en Cotacachi y Otavalo, Ecuador” in Sarance No. 33, pp. 26-36, Summer 2015.
“The Way of Sorrows: Performance, Experience and the Moral Society in Northern Ecuador” in Performativity, Power, and the Poetics of Being: Soundscapes from the Americas, edited by Donna Buchanan. Ashgate Press, August 2014.
“Encuentros: Dances of the Inti Raymi in Cotacachi, Ecuador” in Latin American Music Review 2005, 26(2):189-220.
“Otavaleños at the Crossroads: Physical and Metaphysical Coordinates of an Indigenous World” in JLAA (Journal of Latin American Anthropology) 2005, 10 (1): 151-185.