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School of Society and Environment – Department of Geography and Environmental Science

Aisha Valenzuela Basurto

Aisha

Email: a.a.valenzuelabasurto@qmul.ac.uk

Profile

PhD Project 

Connecting Oceans, Reshaping Territories: Infrastructure, Power and Socio-territorial movements in the Interoceanic Corridor of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec

My doctoral research examines the socio-ecological and political frictions between state-led mega-infrastructure development and Indigenous autonomy in Latin America. Focusing on Mexico’s Interoceanic Corridor (CIIT) and its associated Poles of Development (PRODEBIS), my research utilizes a etnographic methods to investigate how Zapotec agrarian communities defend and reconfigure their territories against a top-down, staggered infrastructure rollout. I am centrally interested in communal politics and the communal reproduction of life, tracking how these local dynamics adapt to capital encroachment across multiple phases—from speculative corporate threats to active environmental disruptions. My research centers the vital role of comunal labor systems (tequio), gendered practices of care, and localized resistance in sustaining life against extractive development.

Supervisors

Sam Halvorsen, Department of Geography, Queen Mary University of London
Jeremy Schmidt, Department of Geography, Queen Mary University of London

Funding 

Queen Mary HSS Doctoral Research Studentship

Research Interests

Political ecology, Infrastructrual Geographies, Socio-Territorial Movements, Exclusion Geographies

Academic Background

MSc in Nature, Society and Environmental Governance by the University of Oxford
BA in Anthropology (Specialization in Biological Anthropology) by the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM)

Awards

Amalia Gonzales Caballero Social Science Award – 2024
St Anne’s Elnora Ferguson Scholarship, Oxford – 2023
CNBBBJ Research International Mobility Scholarship – 2021
BECA UNAM-SI Excellence Scholarship – 2017

Research

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