Dr Natalia Valdivieso Kastner

I am a social anthropologist specialising in the intersections of extractive dynamics, political ecology, and religion in Amazonia. I hold a PhD in Social Anthropology by the University of Manchester and a Master by FLACSO Ecuador.

My research for the past 12 years has focused on the territorial and social changes connected to resource extraction in the Northern Ecuadorian Amazon. My methodological strengths include ethnography, archival research, and community mapping. My PhD thesis Between Religion and Extractivism: Missionary Theopolitics in the Northern Ecuadorian Amazon revealed the fundamental role of missionisation and the mobilisation of non-secular environmental politics in the configuration of Amazonian landscapes. 

Since August 2024, I am part of INFRACURSIONS. Deregulated Infrastructures of Extraction in Rainforest Frontiers. This interdisciplinary research project investigates the emergence and endurance of ‘incursion economies’ – land grabbing, illegal logging, and prospector mining – that take place in the Amazon and result in environmental degradation. With a primary interest in the dynamics of informal gold mining in the Bolivian Amazon, my research provides an empirical account of the infrastructural nodes that connect the supply and value chains of gold production in marginal and under-policed border areas.

The decolonisation of knowledge and applied anthropology are key pillars of my research practice. Since 2020, I have been collaborating with local initiatives towards social and environmental justice in the Ecuadorian Amazon. I welcome any opportunities for capacity-building and collaboration in these matters.   

My research interests include: resource extraction, eco-theo-politics, environmental and social justice, marginality, and ecological spirituality, moral economies, Amazonia and Latin America.