Elisa Taber
Elisa Taber is a writer and anthropologist. She explores the interstice between translation and epistemology in the Nivaklé narratives of the Paraguayan Gran Chaco. Both her stories and translations are troubled into being, even when that trouble is a kind of joy.
In 2013 and 2016 she conducted fieldwork in Neuland, a Mennonite colony in the Paraguayan Gran Chaco, and Cayim ô Clim, the neighboring Nivaklé indigenous settlement. Her hyper-textual lyric ethnography is composed of two multi-sequential sections. The second is an ekphrastic description of 30 second films shot in Neuland and Cayim ô Clim. The first is a metonymic translation of myths from a mixture of Machaco, Guaraní and Spanish into English.
Elisa graduated from The New School Social Research with a Master of Arts in Anthropology. She currently serves as Editorial Assistant for the Curatorial Design Research Lab at Parsons, The New School for Design.
Interview:
https://www.ligeiamagazine.com/fall-2020/elisa-taber-interview/