María Moreno Parra

María Moreno Parra is a postdoctoral research associate on the LAPORA project.

María will be conducting ethnographic research in Ecuador on the understandings of racism, anti-racism and racial inequality, as part of a research team that also works in Brazil, Colombia and Mexico, under the direction of Dr. Mónica Moreno Figueroa and Dr. Peter Wade.

María’s research considers the participation of indigenous women from Latin America in local, national, and global spaces of activism. By examining the connections between processes of globalization of indigenous and women’s rights, development agendas, local politics, and gender dynamics in indigenous organizations, her research highlights the connection of ethnicity, gender, and power in indigenous organizations in Ecuador, and for Latin American indigenous leaders and professionals working in national and global arenas of indigenous activism.

María earned her Ph.D. from the University of Kentucky’s Department of Anthropology, supported by a Fulbright Foreign Student Scholarship and a Lambda Alpha Anthropology Honor Society grant. In Ecuador, she conducted applied research for the management plans of indigenous territories; oral histories of indigenous communities and land; and conceptualizations of poverty in marginal urban and rural communities.

In Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia, she supported regional meetings of indigenous women for the development of environmental agendas.