Eva Youkhana is a training anthropologist who is a researcher and director at the Center for Development Studies where she applies reflective, critical and spatially sensitive perspectives, concepts and methods to urban, migration, conflict and development studies, in addition to teaching feminist theory and postcolonial studies.

She conducted field research for his doctoral thesis in a rural area of Mexico, working with a Mayan community on the challenges of so-called alternative tourism projects. During her last longer stay abroad, she investigated Latin American migrants and their space productions with a semiotic material perspective in Madrid. Since 2018 she has coordinated the Doctoral Training Support Program "Environmental peace and development in Colombia", in which concepts (such as territory, environment, the actor, etc.) and alternatives to the development model are discussed and practiced with civil society actors.

 

Publicationss (selection):

Books

2017. Ed. Border Transgression: Mobility and Mobilization in Crisis Bonn: V&R unipress

2017 (with Sutter, Ove; eds.). Perspectives on the European Border Regime: Mobilization, Contestation, and the Role of Civil Society. Social Inclusion, Volume 5, Issue 3. Online. https://www.cogitatiopress.com/socialinclusion/issue/view/69

2015 (with Förster, Larissa; eds.). GraffiCity. Visual practices and contestations in urban space. Paderborn: Wilhelm Fink Verlag.

 

Journal artícles and book chapters

2022 (with Avilés Irahola, D., Mora-Motta, A., Barbosa Pereira, A., Bharati, L., Biber-Freudenberger, L., Petersheim, C., Quispe-Zuniga, M.R., Schmitt, C.B.).  Integrating scientific and local knowledge to address environmental conflicts: the role of academia.  Human Ecology. (Open Access) https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10745-022-00344-2

2022 (with Mashingaidze, M.)  The multi-situatedness of biographical narratives: contributions to critical migration research.  ZEF Working Paper Series 216. https://www.zef.de/fileadmin/webfiles/downloads/zef_wp/ZEF_WP_216.pdf.

2021 (with Tobón, C., Zamora, D., Ángel, M.).  Deforestation in Tinigua National Natural Park: Socio-environmental consequences of the Peace Agreement in Colombia.  ZEF Working Paper 210, University of Bonn. https://www.zef.de/fileadmin/webfiles/downloads/zef_wp/ZEF_Working_Paper...

2021 (with Rojas-Robles, R., Avilés Irahola, D.L., Mora-Motta, A. and J.-P. Santander-Durán)  Environmental Thinking, Critiques on Development and South-North-South Cooperation Proposals Under Construction.  Gestión y Ambiente , 24 (1): 11-38 .

2020.  Actors networks in critical urban studies – protest against the subprime crisis in Madrid.  ZEF Working Paper Series 191, University of Bonn. https://www.zef.de/fileadmin/webfiles/downloads/zef_wp/ZEF_WP_191.pdf

2020.  Viewing and dancing nature. Environmental conceptions and the politics of belonging of the 'danzantes prehispánicos'.  In: Robinson, Matthew Ryan and Inderst, Inja (eds.): What does Theology Do, Actually? Observing Theology and the Transcultural. Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt.   135 - 148. 

2018.  Los espacios religiosos de los migrantes latinoamericanos y el poder político de los santos: la Virgen del Cisne en Madrid.  In: Romizi, Francesco (eds.): Migrantes peregrinos. Trayectorias identitarias de la diáspora ecuatoriana en el espacio católico transnacional. Quito: Editorial Abya Yala.  

2018 (with Leifkes, Claudia and León-Sicard, Tomás.  2018.  Epistemic Marginality, Higher and Environmental Education in Colombia.  Gestion y Ambiente, Issue No. 2 (Volume 21): 15-29. (Open Access)

2017. Acercamiento crítico a discursos de desarrollo relacionados con la crisis de refugiados: perspectivas desde Alemania. Astrolabio. Revista internacional de filosofía Num. 19: 333-344. Online http://www.raco.cat/index.php/Astrolabio/article/view/318907

2015. A Conceptual shift in Studies of Belonging and the Politics of Belonging. Social Inclusion. Volume 3, No. 4: 10–24; URL: http://www.cogitatiopress.com/ojs/index.php/socialinclusion/article/view....

2014. Creative activism and art against urban renaissance and social exclusion - space sensitive approaches to the study on collective action and belonging. Sociology Compass 8/2: 172–186.

 

Research project as CALAS fellow

Title: Resistance assemblies: urban protest and resilience in times of crisis (housing)

Summary: Latin American metropolises have become urban clusters that reflect global economic, social, and political transformations. Unfortunately, these urban dynamics have not led to an equitable distribution of wealth, but instead to growing and severe urban inequalities, gentrification and displacement which have become one of the most significant threats to the less gifted urban inhabitants, the so-called working classes. Buenos Aires is an example of this. The megacity, with about 10 million inhabitants, has acquired a new centrality for real estate investments and tourism, and since the beginning of industrialization in the 1940s has attracted internal and transnational immigrants who settled in the so-called Villas of the city. Recently, these previously unattractive neighborhoods enjoyed urban renewal, and the commercialization of material and intangible cultural heritage such as tango, which has caused a real estate boom and the displacement of inhabitants of various neighborhoods. Alternative forms and practices of urban organization and planning, as well as the vindication of the right to the city, show how the solidarity of various urban activists, civil society groups, and its resilient initiatives lead to strong resilient social movements to confront hegemonic (urban restructuring).

The study of resistant ensemblages has two sides. At the macro/regional level, it will be described how Latin American metropolises have become urban groups that reflect global transformations. By approaching the case and displaying the socio-material landscape with a perspective of assembly approach I will be able to extract multiple spatial and historical references.

The urban analysis at macrostructural level will be complemented by an ethnographic study to highlight and visualize the practices of protest and resistance, and the daily articulation of urbanity by the inhabitants. By using an assembly approach, I want to introduce innovative concepts and methods that open up new questions for thought and action in critical urban and Latin American studies.