Juanita Esguerra Rezk

About Juanita Esguerra Rezk

I am currently a PhD candidate in Peace and Development Research at the School of Global Studies (University of Gothenburg, Sweden). I hold a Master's in Global Affairs (with a concentration in Sustainable Development) from the University of Notre Dame (USA) and was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship for my MA. I also hold a Bachelor's degree in Political Science with a minor in Conflict Resolution and Peace Research from Pontificia Universidad Javeriana (Bogotá, Colombia).

I am interested in Feminist Political Ecology and decolonial thinking. My research explores contestations over land use in contexts of extractivism. I focus specifically on the narratives around the expansion of the avocado monoculture in Cajamarca (Tolima, Colombia).

I currently teach in two courses: Latin American History and Present Time (LA 1111) and Social and Political Movements in Latin America (LA1112). I am also a guest lecturer in the MA courses Theories and Perspectives in Conflict Resolution (IK2231) and Sustainable Development: Conflicts, Communication and Collaboration (HE2234).

Before starting my PhD, I worked for the Permanent Mission of Colombia to the United Nations, the National Center for Historical Memory (Centro Nacional de Memoria Histórica ), the regional office for South America of the European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations, and the Peace Accords Matrix at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies.