Andrew Gorvetzian

PhD
Anthropology

Afro-Indigenous Garifuna people live in communities on the Caribbean Coast of Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Belize, as well as in diasporic communities in New York and Los Angeles. Many identify as members of a transnational Garifuna Nation, an ethnicity-based national identity that to some extent supersedes identification with the nation-state where they reside. Garifuna people speak their own language, yet there is concern about declining numbers of speakers. Due to the multi-sited constitution of Garifuna communities, as well as differing levels of language use therein, they must pursue complex language revitalization projects. My research will seek to collaborate with Garifuna language revitalization campaigns in Honduras, towards an understanding of how these efforts form part of the articulation of a transnational Garifuna Nation.