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
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