Dr Sabine Dedenbach-Salazar Saenz

Honorary Senior Lecturer

Literature and Languages - Division Stirling

Dr Sabine Dedenbach-Salazar Saenz

Contact details

About me

I joined the then School of Languages, Cultures and Religions at Stirling University in 2006, after having taught at Bonn University (Germany) and previously at St Andrews University. I worked in the Faculty of Arts & Humanities at Stirling until my retirement at the end of August 2022.

My academic degrees are in Amerindian Studies and Cultural Anthropology (German M.A., Dr. phil., Habilitation).

My research focuses on Amerindian cultures and languages, and on the Andean peoples of South America in particular. In order to understand the complex history and cultural developments of indigenous peoples better, it is important to take an inter- and cross-disciplinary approach. Therefore in my research I combine ethnohistory, cultural anthropology and ethnolinguistics, fields that enable me to study the culture and language of the so-called 'indigenous peoples'. For more information on my activities and publications see: http://www.dedenbachsalazar.stir.ac.uk.

The combination of different research perspectives and approaches takes into account the changes those peoples have undergone and are still undergoing. Multiple and multilayered influences have shaped contemporary indigenous life, which is now closely related to, involved with and in some instances amalgamated with that of the modern, postcolonial nation-states of which the indigenous peoples form a vital part.

A major research theme of mine has been for many years the Christianisation of the Andean peoples, and in particular the role the implementation of the Christian doctrine using the main native languages (above all Quechua) has played in the colonial era, partly shaping modern Andean religion. In August 2011 I received a nine-month AHRC fellowship (GBP 68,572) to complete a book (in Spanish) on "Interlacing Two Worlds: The Creation of a Colonial Quechua Verbal Art.". Publication: Entrelazando dos mundos: Experimentos y experiencias con el quechua cristiano en el Perú colonial. Quito: Abya-yala 2013.

I was co-organiser of the Henkel Foundation funded conference on 'European-indigenous Trans/Mission: Translation Strategies in Colonial Latin America' at the Free University of Berlin in October 2011 and have edited selected papers: La transmisión de conceptos cristianos a las lenguas amerindias: Estudios sobre textos y contextos de la época colonial. (Collectanea Instituti Anthropos 48.) Sankt Augustin: Academia Verlag 2016. [Introduction accessible at: http://hdl.handle.net/1893/22965.]

Another volume I edited was based on Stirling Roundtables about 'Translating Christianities' which I had organised: Translating Wor(l)ds: Explaining Christianity across Cultural Boundaries. (Collectanea Instituti Anthropos 51.) Baden-Baden: Academia Verlag 2019. (For information see https://www.nomos-elibrary.de/10.5771/9783896657954-1/titelei-inhaltsverzeichnis.)

I received funding to intensify my academic contacts with Brazilian scholars (Carnegie Travel Grant), mainly on the research on the 'Translation of Christianities', together with Dr Maria Cândida Drumond Mendes Barros, (Museu Goeldi, Belém).

Currently I head an international research group on 'Eestudios comparativos de textos en lenguas indígenas: lingüística (histórica), traducción de cultura(s) y contextos culturales', with colleagues from Mexico, Brazil and Norway.

My linguistic interests have always been related to cultural questions. Besides my studies on the Quechua and Aymara languages I directed a research project (2005-2007) on the documentation and description of the endangered Bolivian Chipaya language (Volkswagen Foundation funded project for the Documentation and Description of Endangered Languages: DOBES). (For a description see: http://dobes.mpi.nl/projects/chipaya/language/.)

From an ethnohistorical point of view I have looked into and documented in publications the different ways in which Peruvian peasants' lives are described within the hacienda system and the resulting conflictive situation at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century ('Life history and microhistory: tensions between big landowners and peasants in Southern Peru at the beginning of the 20th century').

For my list of publications see: https://www.dedenbachsalazar.stir.ac.uk/files/2022/08/Dedenbach-Salazar-Publications-23-08-2022.pdf

Research programmes

Research themes