Jennifer Sierra

BS, University of Florida
MA, University of Michigan
PhD, University of Michigan

Critical infrastructure and internet studies; Language, interaction, and semiotics; Indigenous
peoples, Amazon region; science and technology studies (STS)

I am a linguistic anthropologist conducting cross-disciplinary research to explore human-machine relationships among Indigenous peoples in the Peruvian Amazon. I am interested in how Indigenous Amazonians cultivate, construe, negotiate, and live with digital technologies in their rural territories. My current work specifically examines Shipibo-Konibo's (“Shipibo”) participation in digital technologies and the materialization of internet infrastructure in their Native Communities. I analyze these experiences as inseparable from the global political economy shaping today’s telecommunications industry.

Drawing on sociocultural and linguistic anthropology, Indigenous studies, media studies, and science and technology studies (STS), my work shows that participation in digital media fosters significant transformations for Indigenous Amazonians, reconfiguring their relations to their territories, each other, and the world beyond.

2026 Sierra, Jennifer. “How Facebook Changed Indirectas: Critiquing Leaders and Managing Alterity Online among Shipibo-Konibos.” Journal of Language and Communication.

2026 Sierra, Jennifer. “Selfies, Shamans, and Social Media Participation Among the Shipibo-Konibo in the Peruvian Amazon,” in Practicing Digital Ethnography, Routledge.

ANTH1100 Introduction to Cultural Anthropology

ANTH1413 Language and Culture

ANTH2892 Power and Media