Zoe VanGelder

My research at Stanford explores how women and youth from Mexican agrarian social movements are reimagining rural futures and what it is to “live well” in a context of global economic and ecological precarity. I am interested in the ways international climate politics and adaptation and mitigation strategies get translated by frontline communities. I want to examine how climate politics affects changing notions of rural development and how it creates new opportunities and obstacles for agrarian social movements. I am especially concerned with understanding the lived-experience of women and youth from these social movements. Using experimental ethnographic methods, I work with women and youth to study how they participate in decision-making around land-use and natural resource governance.

I am an ethnographer and a political ecologist with over a decade of experience doing research, supporting agrarian social movements, feminist organizations, and international NGOs on a variety of initiatives. I have a bachelor’s degree in Anthropology and Latin American Studies from the University of Chicago and a Master’s in Environmental Science from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. Before coming to Stanford, I worked and consulted with Oxfam International, ActionAid, the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, and the Jameel Abdul Latif Poverty Action Lab. Most recently, I have accompanied emancipatory research and advocacy projects with agrarian social movements in Mexico.