The prominent and influential anthropologist Giselle Chang Vargasprofessor at the School of Anthropology at the University of Costa Rica (UCR), died this April 11, according to the institution’s Faculty of Social Sciences. Winner of the National Cultural Research Award and other academic recognitions, she was one of the most notable specialists in her field in the country.
Dr. Chang specialized in intangible cultural heritage, indigenous and Afro-Caribbean cultural diversity, and the anthropology of tourism, as well as linguistic studies. Social anthropologist and linguist, she served as coordinator of the Thematic Chair “Heritage and Cultural Diversity” at the UCR and published numerous books and articles on the subject.
This Saturday, the Confucius Institute highlighted her as a member of the Sino-Costa Rican community; For its part, the community dedicated to boyeo remembered her contributions as co-author of Herdsmen, oxen and carts – Along the path of Intangible Heritage (2008), research that contributed to the UNESCO declaration about this practice.
In 2024, his book Ethnotourism and cultural heritage. Interactions, transformations and abrupt resignifications (1975-2014) won the Luis Ferrero Acosta National Cultural Research Award from the National Culture Awards. By Tourist imaginary and transformations of the indigenous Cultural Heritage: The Brunca Crafts and arts of Costa Rica, from 1975 to 2014 received the Tenerife Award for the Promotion and Research of the Crafts of Spain and America 2016.
He also published lexicographic studies, analysis of masquerades, religious festivities, cultural tourism and studies of traditional gastronomy.
The specialized entity Icomos Costa Rica remembered her as an “exemplary woman in every sense”: “She leaves a great academic and human legacy. We are left with her example and the memory of her great dedication in the defense of cultural heritage.”
The funeral of Giselle Chang Vargas was scheduled at the San Bosco Church, at 11:30 am this Monday, and her burial was scheduled at the General Cemetery.
