Dr. Margherita Scazza

Bath Spa University
Human Geography

Member of the Young Academy for Sustainability Research (YAS)
October 2024 – September 2027

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ORCID

E-Mail: m.scazza@bathspa.ac.uk

Last Update: 08.11.2024

Curriculum Vitae

I am a human geographer interested in environmental justice, resource politics and Indigenous mobilisations in Latin America. My research draws on the fields of political ecology, governmentality studies and decolonial theory. Since July 2024 I work as a Teaching Fellow in Geography at Bath Spa University. I hold a PhD in Human Geography from the University of Edinburgh where I was a doctoral researcher between 2018 and 2022, and where I worked as a Teaching Fellow between 2022 and 2024. Previously I worked as a press officer at Survival International, where I was involved in campaigns for the rights of uncontacted Indigenous tribes and on nature conservation. My doctoral research explored Indigenous anti-extractivist resistance in the Ecuadorian Amazon, specifically focusing on (1) the politics of collaborations between Indigenous activists and environmental organisations; (2) questions of territorial governance, transformations and contestations; (3) struggles for autonomy, within and beyond the realm of resource governance. In my doctoral thesis I presented an ethnographic account of the Resistencia Waorani, a social movement which originated to oppose oil expansion in the territory inhabited by the Waorani people.

Recently, I have been focusing on processes of just energy transitions and the role of place-based education in fostering post-extractive futures. I am particularly interested in understanding the role of Indigenous autonomous education programmes and intergenerational knowledge transmission in achieving environmental justice and just energy transitions.

Selected Publications

Scazza, M. (2023). «Lots of activism, little academia»: ethical and methodological challenges of engaged ethnography with an Indigenous social movement, in De Marchi, M., Piovan, S., Pappalardo, S. E. (eds.) Atti del XXXIII Congresso Geografico Italiano, Moving Geographies, Vol. 5, pp.417-422.
Rzedzian, S., Scazza, M. and Santos Vera, E. (2022). ‘Advocating for livelihoods through Social Movements’, in Nunan, F., Barnes, C., Krishnamurthy, S. (eds.) The Routledge Handbook on Livelihoods in the Global South. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, pp.206-216.
Staddon, S., Barnes, C., Lai, J.Y., Scazza, M. and Wilkie, R. (2021). A “Token of Love”: the role of emotions in student field trips teaching critical development geographies. Journal of Geography in Higher Education, pp.1-18.
Scazza, M. and Nenquimo, O. (2021). From spears to maps: the case of Waorani resistance in Ecuador for the defence of their right to prior consultation. Legal tools for citizens’ empowerment – report, IIED, London.

Curriculum Vitae

Selected Publications

YAS Project

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