My research interests cluster around two sets of issues: the politics of knowledge in global governance and the use of new technologies to promote horizontal, participatory research.
I am particularly interested in the connections and tensions between indigenous communities’ forms of knowledge and neoliberal rationalities, and the ways in which the marginalisation of indigenous and other subaltern knowledges can be countered. Geographically, I focus mainly on Latin America, particularly Peru.
My current projects include:
- A book on the politics of indigenous communities’ traditional knowledge in the World Trade Organisation (WTO), and the new identities that are emerging through interactions between WTO policy-makers and civil society organisations campaigning on these issues.
- A knowledge exchange project funded by the AHRC’s Research and Enterprise in Arts and Creative Technology (REACT) programme, which explores the ways in which internet technology can be fused with radio and mobile phone technology to promote participatory story-telling among forcibly sterilised women in Peru. See: www.quipu-project.com and http://www.bris.ac.uk/media-library/sites/policybristol/documents/Briefing%2019%20-%20Quipu%20project%20update.pdf.
I am a member of two university research institutes: the Cabot Institute and the Global Insecurities Centre.