Adriana Arista-Zerga

Contact

• workRoom B35.3 Trent Building
  University Park
  Nottingham
  NG7 2RD
  UK
• work0115 84 68518
• fax0115 95 15812
• Adriana.arista-zerga@nottingham.ac.uk

Biography

I am from Lima Peru, living in the United Kingdom for more than five years after lived in Barcelona- Spain where I awarded my PhD in Social and Cultural Anthropology by the Autonomous University of Barcelona. I am a Lawyer and Master in Human Rights and Anthropology. I have extensive research experience in intangible and tangible cultural heritage, linked with the cultural law, cultural human rights, identity, museums, communities, memory and cultural tourism, in different research institutes, governmental and non-governmental organizations in countries as Peru, Spain, and the United Kingdom.

Instrumental in my professional and academic development was my work in the Institute of Peruvian Studies, where I worked after 2006 as a research assistant and lead investigator on several projects related to indigenous communities, education, development, poverty and ethnicity, museums, cultural heritage, and food safety.

I have also acted as a Lawyer-Analyst of crimes and human rights violations in the Peruvian Commission of Truth and Reconciliation (2002-2003) and as a Lawyer-Researcher in the Council of Reparations (2008) and directly after finishing my PhD, I worked in the Peruvian Ministry of Culture as a Scientific Researcher in the Area of Communitarian Participation at the Qhapaq Ñan Project, supporting the academic and scientific areas, I carried out different scientific studies about cultural heritage, communities, related to the social use of cultural heritage, the value of the cultural heritage for the communities and the perceptions about cultural tourism, etc. At the same time I co- organized and contributed to conferences, seminars and meetings about cultural heritage and communities for the team, for other ministry areas and for the general public.

I publish various essays and scientific papers in different countries and also presented my work at various conferences, workshops and symposia in Peru, Chile, Mexico, Spain, Austria and the United Kingdom.

Expertise Summary

Expertise as a researcher about different topics like human rights, cultural human rights, rural communities, cultural heritage, memory, identity, museums, intercultural studies, cultural tourism.

I am part of the team of the Institute for Intangible Cultural Heritage-IPACIM. Barcelona, Spain.

http://ipacim.org/en/

Teaching Summary

Teacher. Department of Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American, Studies University of Nottingham.

• Spanish 1, Spanish 2 and Spanish 3 oral classes.

I have gained valuable teaching experience in diverse settings, including universities, schools and other educational institutes. This has allowed me to develop a broad research and teaching portfolio across various cultures, whilst adapting to numerous high-pressured environments. In short, I have acquired a strong work ethic and demonstrated my professional adaptability. In these different settings, I was in charge of the implementation and coordination of the modules, classes, designing and organizing the material from different resources and for the assessment of the students.

After finishing my Master studies, I was an Assistant Professor in the course of Andean Anthropology in the career of Anthropology, at the Faculty of Social Sciences of San Marcos University in Lima-peru. Here I carried out the debates and discussion of anthropological papers related with the Andean area in Peru into the sessions.

On a postgraduate level, I was a teacher in the Cultural Management diploma of the Institute of the Museum of Art of Lima. This diploma was aimed at postgraduate people with different academic and professional backgrounds, but with a real interest to work in the cultural area. The course I taught was "Cultural Legislation", where I not only focused on the Peruvian experience but also in other countries experiences, such as Spain and Italy, and the international cultural legislation.

Since January 2016 I have been a Spanish teacher in the Department of Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies at the University of Nottingham, delivering Spanish 2 and Spanish 3 oral classes, which follow the Department program.

Research Summary

I have been working as a researcher for a long period of time which has included fieldwork in Peru and Spain. Since finishing my studies I have been working as a researcher as well as an independent… read more

Current Research

I have been working as a researcher for a long period of time which has included fieldwork in Peru and Spain. Since finishing my studies I have been working as a researcher as well as an independent academic and legal consultant in different governmental and non-governmental organizations.

• My current research is related with the memory and culture in post-conflict countries.
• Project: "The sun amidst the dark: memory, tradition and cultural heritage during the internal armed conflict in Peru".

  This project seeks to identify the relationship between memory and cultural heritage during armed conflict. It starts from the idea that cultural elements, related to periods or stages of armed conflict, could be elements that articulate the past and also could become a meeting point, from the perspective of the victims themselves, and society in general. This work will focus on the study of the testimonies gathered for the preparation of the Final Report of Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Peru-CVR, an institution created in 2000, that was mandated to analyse the political, social and cultural conditions, as well as clarify the events of the internal armed conflict, from 1980 to 2000 years. The final report from the CVR was presented in 2003, revealing that the most potent causes that led to the conflict were the big social divisions that persist even to this day, reflected in poverty and oblivion of populations from the highlands and the Amazon of Peru. After almost twelve years of the presentation of the CVR report, the testimonies will help to know and recognise, part of the past; this work is an analysis of the testimonies, in seeking cultural references, both tangible and intangible, in order to be able to know what happened to the cultural heritage during the internal armed conflict, and how it could recover story/stories that, eventually, could become symbolic compensations for many people who lost everything.

Past Research

Alongside with the Institute for Intangible Heritage-IPACIM, Barcelona-Spain. Project "The traditional food as a factor of economic development. International experiences, trends and proposal for Catalonia".

• Responsible for the research and collection of primary and secondary resources in different languages English, Spanish, Italian, French and Catalan.
• Responsible for the systematization of national and international experiences Italy, France, Basque Country and Nordic countries.
• Collaborator in the analysis of the experiences and trends.