[3] Working in Ecuador since 1961, Whitten and his wife, Dorothea Scott Whitten (1930–2011), has cofounded the Sacha Runa Research Foundation, a non-profit organization to support research among ethnically identifiable peoples of Ecuador, and to promote recognition of aesthetic values and cultural traditions of these peoples.
[5] He edited the Journal American Ethnologist for five years, and the book series Interpretations of Culture in the New Millennium for over twenty years, and together with Dorothea, he has organized museum exhibitions in North and South America, including a permanent exhibit of over 450 objects at the University of Illinois's Spurlock Museum of World Cultures.
[8] Whitten started his academic career in 1964 as an Acting Assistant Professor at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
[9] During his tenure at the University of Illinois, Whitten was the Department Head of Anthropology from 1983 to 1986, and the Director of the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies from 2000 till 2003.
[10] Whitten has published many books and essays on topics related to social organization, power structure and dynamics, ethnoaesthetics, and cultural imagery.
[12] Julian Pitt-Rivers considers the book to be an "excellent work in itself" which not only to entails "the conversion of an agricultural and fishing community into a railhead and port," but also tends to discuss "the arrival of a large number of highlanders…"[13] An American anthropologist Marvin Harris is of the view that Whitten’s choice of a significant subject matter in the book "obscures the pioneering nature of the research here reported on, for there are no studies available which could provide a baseline literature.
Michael T. Hamerly regarded the book as a "significant work" which is solely based on ethnographic observation of and interaction with Canelos and other Indian groups of the upper Amazon.
While studying at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, he met Dorothea (Sibby) Scott, a master's student in sociology.