Frédérique Apffel-Marglin facts for kids

Frédérique Apffel-Marglin is a retired professor of anthropology. Anthropology is the study of human societies and cultures. She used to teach at Smith College in Massachusetts, USA.

About Her Life and Work

Frédérique Apffel-Marglin finished high school in Tangier, Morocco. She earned her first degree in Mediterranean Studies in 1973. Later, she received her Ph.D. in Anthropology in 1980. Both degrees were from Brandeis University.

Work in India

Frédérique Apffel-Marglin lived in India for several years. First, she studied Indian Classical Dance (Odissi style). After that, she did her first research among the temple dancers of Jagannath Temple in Orissa. This was in the mid-1970s. Later, she worked with farming communities along the coast of Orissa.

Work in South America

Since 1994, she has worked with non-profit groups in Peru and Bolivia. She taught special courses for these groups from 1994 to 2005. During this time, she helped lead a project called "Centers for Mutual Learning" in Peru and Bolivia. This project received funding from a MacArthur grant until 1999.

In 2009, she started a non-profit organization in the Peruvian High Amazon. It is called the Sachamama Center for Biocultural Regeneration (SCBR). She is the director of this center. SCBR works with local native communities. They help to bring back a special ancient soil that is very fertile. This soil was discovered by archaeologists. She also leads summer study programs for college students from the US at SCBR.

Research and Publications

From 1985 to 1991, she was a research advisor at a group called WIDER in Helsinki. WIDER is part of the United Nations University. There, she worked with economist Stephen Marglin. Together, they led a team that wrote three books. These books looked at new ways to think about development and how the world is becoming more connected. She has written over 55 articles and 13 books.

She was also an associate editor for a journal called INTERculture.

Writings (selection)

Frédérique Apffel-Marglin has written and edited many books. Here are a few examples:

As author

• Subversive Spiritualities: How Rituals Enact the World, Oxford University Press, New York, 2011.
• Rhythms of Life: Enacting the World with the Goddesses of Orissa, Oxford University Press, 2008, ISBN: 0-19-569419-8.
• The Spirit of Regeneration: Andean Culture Confronting Western Notions of Development, Palgrave 1998, ISBN: 1-85649-548-5.

As editor

• (with Stephen A. Marglin): Dominating Knowledge: Development, Culture, and Resistance, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990.
• (with Tariq Banuri): Who Will Save the Forests?: Knowledge, Power and Environmental Destruction, Delhi: Zed Boks 1993.
• (with John A. Grim): Indigenous Traditions and Ecology: The Interbeing of Cosmology and Community, Harvard University Press, 2000.