About Andrea
I am from Bolivia and originally trained as an agronomist within the agrarian systems and compared agriculture school of thought in France. Through academic research and work for NGOs, I have enriched my interests, lenses, and methods to approach questions of change and transformation of socioecological systems, particularly in rural and indigenous lands. The geographic focus of my work has mostly been the Andes-Amazon (and in particular, the intersalar region of the Bolivian Altiplano, and the Llanos de Moxos wetland complex in the Bolivian Amazon). My current research, conducted within a transdisciplinary team and approach, explores the impacts of land use change and climate change on livelihoods and ecosystem services in landscapes increasingly connected to global commodity chains. I am interested in further pursuing questions on the impacts of these rapid transformations on rural and indigenous communities in terms of land and natural resource governance systems, livelihood strategies, and territorially-specific conceptions of well-being and autonomy. *The TRILLAR Lab* TRILLAR stands for “Transformations of Rural and Indigenous Livelihoods, Lands, and Autonomous Regimes”. “Trillar”, in Spanish, means “to separate grain from shaft”. We use this verb as a metaphor for the lab’s scientific endeavor, which aims to identify and discuss truths through rigorous mixed methods and dialogues among and across diverse ways of knowing. Our objective is to contribute to more just and sustainable societies by generating knowledge, fostering critical thinking, and building academic and practice-oriented skills. We tackle questions of change and transformation of social-ecological systems - particularly in rural and indigenous lands - in the face of climate change, rapid urbanization, the expansion of extractive frontiers, and increasing connections to global commodity chains. We do so by bridging social and natural sciences; quantitative and qualitative research methods; and fundamental, applied, and transdisciplinary approaches. Our interests include – but are not limited to - land tenure, land use change, livelihoods, food security and sovereignty, cross-scalar and territorial governance of natural resources, territorial indigenous autonomy, food security and sovereignty, ecosystem services and conservation, and urban-rural interfaces. While the lab is open in geographic focus, our work has been centered in Latin America.
Google Scholar ProfileInterests
- Transformations and adaptations of land and natural resource governance systems in the face of globalization and climate change
- Livelihood strategies, food security/ sovereignty, and multi-residency
- Territorial multifunctionality and conceptions of autonomy
- Mixed-methods and Q-method
Education
Postdoc, The Natural Capital Project - Stanford University
Palo Alto, CA, 2021-2022
Ph.D., Interdisciplinary Ecology - University of Florida
Gainesville, FL, 2019
Graduate Certificate, Higher Education - Universidad Mayor de San Andrés
La Paz, Bolivia, 2018
M.S., Agricultural Development and Compared Agriculture - AgroParisTech
Paris, France, 2011
B.S., Agricultural Engineering - AgroParisTech and University of Sao Paulo (ESALQ)
Paris, France and Piracicaba, SP, Brazil, 2010-2011
Classe préparatoire, BCPST - Lycée Henri IV
Paris France, 2005-2007
Selected Publications
Participatory Action Research for Conservation and Development: Experiences from the Amazon
Political ecology explanations for ineffective environmental governance for sustainability in the Amazon: A comparative analysis of cases from Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, and Peru
Desarrollo de capacidades en transformación de conflictos socioambientales. Teoría y práctica
Memberships
- Instituto de Investigaciones Socio-Económicas IISEC - Universidad Católica Boliviana
- Instituto Para el Desarrollo Rural de Sudamerica IPDRS
- Grupo de Trabajo para los Llanos de Moxos
Web Links
Instituto de Investigaciones Socio-Económicas IISEC - Universidad Católica Boliviana