Expertise

Gender, culture and sustainable development/conservation; Gender, livelihoods and social differentiation; Globalization gender and livelihoods; indigenous peoples and ethnicity in development; ethnic spirituality and health;

Profile

A social scientist (B.A. from the Universidad Catolica del Peru, 1976) and an anthropologist (Ph.D. from the University of Florida, 1998), Cristina worked for 25 years as a researcher and program manager in sustainable development, with social groups as diverse as goat herders, poor farmers in the Andes and the Amazon or migrant rural workers in large sugar mills on the coast of Peru. She focused on the links between gender, livelihoods as adaptive strategies to natural environments and changing macroeconomic contexts, and the role of culture and ethnicity maintaining or contesting social hierarchies. Her professional experience ranges from working within a small NGO she co-founded in Peru to heading the Global Social Policy Program for IUCN, an international conservation organization with operation on five continents. She has taught for more than ten years within international graduate programs in the USA and her courses at the MA in SID at the Heller School include: Gender & development, Gender & globalization, Gender & the environment, Indigenous peoples & development, Education, gender & development, Shifting development paradigms, Development in Latin America and Interdisciplinary applied research design for development.
Cristina's publications include books like Unveiling Differences, Finding a Balance (IUCN, 2004), Desenredando el Laberinto (IUCN, 2002) Migracion, Familia y Socializacion: los cortadores de cana de azucar de Patapo-Pucala (CE&DAP, 1987), many articles in peer-reviewed journals, book chapters and technical reports.