Associate Professor  ǀ Docent 

I am a feminist geographer researching human-environment interactions. Currently I research resistance to extractivism in a transnational context (Ecuador and South Africa) and agricultural adaptation to climate change in Scania, Sweden. 

I carry out research grounded on feminist epistemology prioritizing situated, lived and Indigenous Knowledge, epistemic plurality, participatory methodologies, ethics of care and a decolonizing approach.  Accordingly, I have disseminated my research in different formats e.g. art-exhibit, workshops with research participants and booklets in local languages. 

I have conducted research in Kenya, Tanzania, Ecuador,Venezuela and Appalachia in the USA. I am multilingual and have taught and given TV, radio and written press interviews in English, Spanish, Italian and Swedish.

 I served as Coordinating Lead Author of the 2022 6th United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Assessment Report. I led the chapter on Water in the 2nd Working Group on Impacts, Vulnerability and Adaptation.

In my feminist academic practice critically explore the neoliberal turn of the academia and its consequences for early- career female faculty and PhD researchers. I am a member of the International Geographical Union Gender Commission Steering Committee.

Ongoing projects: 

- "Women’s resistance to extractivism. A transnational embodied framework for analysis" funded by FORMAS with Dr. Vasna Ramasar as a PI. (2023-2026) This research proposes to theorise this relation through a transnational study of women’s resistance to extractivism. Using interviews, body-territory mapping and workshops, the study will explore embodied experiences of women in extraction zones through two case studies in Ecuador and South Africa. The aim is to develop a transnational analytical framework for the link between the gendered effects of extractivism and the resistance to it.

- "Climate resilient development - a study of women and immigrant ecopreneurs’ led innovation in agriculture" (2023-2025) funded through Browaldhs Handelsbanked Postdoc. Departing from a feminist epistemological angle, at the intersection of human geography and innovation studies this project aims at understanding how the green transition in agriculture can be climate resilient, inclusive and innovative in a bottom-up and place-based manner. The project focuses on a case study of REKO Ringen in Sweden - local consumption groups marketing ecological produce through social media - as a prototype of organizational, communication and agricultural innovation that combines climate friendly practices with new entrepreneurial routines.

Past projects include:

- "Impaired waters, impaired bodies. Gendered embodied resistance extractivism. A transnational perspective." By examining the predominant role that women have played and are playing in the watershed movement in West Virginia, this project explored the embodied dimensions of water pollution caused by extractivism in the form of coal mining and hydraulic fracturing. In collaboration with Dr. Sofia Zaragocin, at the Universidad San Francisco de Quito, Ecuador, I explored the transnational gendered embodied dimensions of extractivism with a comparison between WV and Ecuador and guest edited a special issue in Human Geography.

- "Towards the Appalachian Storage Hub. An analysis of economic, social and environmental consequences of gas extraction and distribution. " Thanks to funding received by the Heinz Foundation Sustainability Program and the West Virginia University Humanities Center I investigated how local communities in the tri-state area have been affected economically, socially and environmentally by the development of gas and oil pipelines related to the planned Appalachian Storage Hub. 

- "East African Hydropatriarchies: An analysis of changing waterscapes in smallholder irrigation farming.” As part of my dissertation, I analyzed how climate change adaptation is gendered and how landscape was being changed to adapt in the context of smallholder irrigation farming in Kenya and Tanzania.

- Through a UNESCO consultancy I researched the role that migration and conflict play in (mal)adapting to water insecurity