Gwen Burnyeat

Gwen Burnyeat is a British anthropologist and writer based in Colombia and the UK, author of 'Chocolate, Politics and Peace-Building: An Ethnography of the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó, Colombia' (Palgrave Macmillan 2018), and producer and co-director of award-winning ethnographic documentary 'Chocolate of Peace' (2016, www.chocolateofpeace.com). She is currently a Wolfson scholar reading for a PhD in Anthropology at University College London researching the way that the Colombian state communicates the Santos-FARC peace process to society, doing fieldwork within the Oficina del Alto Comisionado para la Paz. She was previously lecturer in Political Anthropology in the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, where she also did a Masters in Anthropology as a Leverhulme Trust Study-Abroad Scholar. This research was the basis of both her book and film.

She holds a first-class BA in English Language and Literature from the University of Leeds (2008), and obtained a distinction in her MPhil from the University of Cambridge in European Literature and Culture (2009). She has worked in Colombia for over eight years, including with the International Centre for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) and with Peace Brigades International (PBI). She has written political analysis on Colombia for the London Review of Books, the LRB Blog, and for Latin America Bureau: http://lab.org.uk/gwen-burnyeats-colombia-blog/. She is a member of transnational civil society network Rodeemos el Diálogo, and associate fellow of St Ethelburga's Centre for Reconciliation and Peace.