Laura’s research interests include indigenous movements in Latin America, human rights, development studies and postcolonial and decolonial theory. Her doctoral dissertation “Mobilizing the Law: Indigenous Resistance to the Mayan Train in the South of Mexico” is supervised by Prof. Cristina Rojas and Prof. Laura Macdonald and adopts a critical approach rooted in pluriversal theory to illuminate ways in which Mayan people and organizations navigate international, regional and national human rights instruments to contest the representation of their territories as a lifeless asset.
Laura holds a Bachelor’s degree in International Development Studies from McGill University and a Masters in Development Studies from York University in addition to graduate diplomas from the Centre for Refugee Studies (CRS) and the Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean (CERLAC). She entered the program in 2019 and is also affiliated with the Institute of Political Economy.
Aside from her academic work, Laura has been working with human rights and civil society organizations since 2015. Since 2019, she has been the coordinator of the Pueblos Étnicos y Paz – Red Global/Ethnic Peoples and Peace – Global Network, a group of academics and activists dedicated to advancing the implementation of the 2016 Colombian Peace Accords in indigenous and Afro-Colombian territories through global collaborative advocacy strategies.