PhD, University of California, Davis, 2009
MA, Simon Fraser University, 2001
Hons BA, University of Toronto,1999

RESEARCH INTERESTS

My research explores the dynamics of conflicts over resource extraction in Latin America, focusing specifically on mining activity and related controversies over pollution, water scarcity, community rights, and corporate accountability. For my doctoral research, I conducted ethnographic fieldwork in the Peruvian Highlands. I examined changing forms of politics, mining technologies, and contested knowledges about Nature that emerged alongside the expansion of mining activity into areas formerly used for agriculture and farming.

More recently, my work has looked at mining development on the border between Chile and Argentina. I am interested in exploring how new territories of extraction are imagined and materially produced as sites of unlimited potential for mining and investment, and how this vision of extractive frontiers is challenged by local and international activism. I also hope to explore the connections between my research in South America and issues related to resource extraction in Canada.