Perry Gilmore, Ph.D., a linguistic and educational anthropologist, is Professor Emerita of Language, Reading and Culture (LRC) and Second Language Acquisition and Teaching (SLAT) at the University of Arizona. She is also Professor Emerita of Linguistics and Education and Affiliate Faculty of the Alaska Native Language Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. She has conducted communication, language and literacy research in a wide variety of urban and rural settings in the United States, Russia, Africa and Australia. Interest in language and communication has led her to explore a wide range of questions on the origin, nature, and development of social interaction and communication, including: field studies of non-human primate communication in the West Indies and East Africa, pidginization and creolization of languages, social aspects of literacy acquisition, and Indigenous language and culture regenesis. She is the author of numerous ethnographic studies and co-editor of several major ethnography collections including, Children In and Out of School: Ethnography and Education, The Acquisition of Literacy: Ethnographic Perspectives, and Indigenous Epistemologies and Education: Self-Determination, Anthropology and Human Rights. Her most recent book, Kisisi (Our Language): The Story of Colin and Sadiki, documents the creative invention of a private Swahili pidgin language by two five year old friends in postcolonial Kenya. Gilmore is the past President of the American Anthropology Association’s Council on Anthropology and Education (CAE) and the recipient of the CAE prestigious George and Louise Spindler Award for lifetime achievement in Anthropology and Education.
