Last month, the founder and first president of The Chijnaya Foundation, Dr. Ralph Bolton, received the prestigious Bronisław Malinowski award from the American Society for Applied Anthropology.
This recognition highlights Bolton’s scholarship as an anthropologist in the U.S., Bolivia, and Peru. Bolton’s dedication to the communities and people with whom he worked in the Altiplano, led him to establish The Chijnaya Foundation to support sustainable development projects. Twenty years later, the Chijnaya Foundation continues to thrive and celebrates Bolton’s achievements and this notable 20th year milestone. In collaboration with our Peruvian counterpart, Asociación Pro-DIA, the Chijnaya Foundation looks forward to continued work in health, education and sustainable development with over 48 communities and associations in the Altiplano.
We extend the Foundation’s sincere congratulations to Dr. Bolton for this richly deserved honor and thank him for his contributions to the scholarship on the peoples and culture of the Altiplano and for his commitment to their continued well being.
The abstract of Dr. Bolton’s award address is below. To read the full address, visit the following link.
Honored to be the 2025 recipient of the Society for Applied Anthropology’s Bronislaw Malinowski Award, in this Lecture, I outline the trajectory of my career as an applied anthropologist, as a way of life, not merely a profession. My initiation into applied anthropology began as a Peace Corps volunteer working on an agrarian reform project in Peru in the 1960s. A preoccupation with rural poverty in the Andes was central to my early career and my late career when I returned to Peru, establishing The Chijnaya Foundation that supports projects in health, education and sustainable economic development in fifty communities around Lake Titicaca. During the AIDS pandemic, my focus shifted to HIV/AIDS prevention research, followed by a foray into historic preservation in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I conclude with commentary on the difficult challenges faced today by applied anthropologists in a dramatically different environment from the one in which I operated during my long career.