Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Arizona

Home / People / Core Faculty / Profile

Assistant Research Anthropologist, Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology, also adjunct faculty,

Ph.D. University of Arizona, 1995

Dr. Marcela Vásquez-León was born and raised in Bogotá, Colombia. She has an interdisciplinary background, with a Ph.D. in Anthropology and an M.S. in Agricultural Economics from the University of Arizona. She joined the LAS faculty in 2004 and holds a joint appointment with The Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology (BARA). Marcela’s research interests include environmental anthropology; political ecology; fisheries management and maritime anthropology; rural development and agricultural cooperatives; environmental justice; and human dimensions of global environmental change. She has an ongoing USAID-funded research project entitled “Development and Expansion of Economic Assistance Programs That Fully Utilize Cooperatives or Credit Unions.” This project focuses on agricultural cooperatives in Brazil, Colombia, Paraguay, and Bolivia and assesses strategies of change that reflect the effective role of cooperativism and cooperatives and their impacts on society and the economy.

Area studies courses: Environment and Society in Latin America; the Wake of the Green Revolution; "Sustainable" Development.

Selected Publications

Vásquez-León, M. and A. Bracamonte. 2005. Indicadores Ambientales para la Agricultura Sustentable: un Estudio del Noreste de Sonora. Final Report. El Colegio de Sonora, Sonora, Mexico.

Vásquez-León, M. and D. Liverman. 2004. The Political Ecology of Land-Use Change: The Case of Affluent Ranchers and Destitute Farmers in the Mexican Municipio of Alamos. Human Organization.63:1: 21- 33.

Vásquez-León, M, C. T. West, T. J. Finan. 2003 A Comparative Assessment of Climate Vulnerability: Agriculture and Ranching on Both Sides of the US–Mexico Border. Global Environmental Change. 13:3: 159-173.

Vásquez-León, M., 2002, Assessing Vulnerability to Climate Risk: The Case of Small-Scale Fishing in the Gulf of California, Mexico. Investigaciones Marinas 30:1: 204-205.

Vásquez-León, M., 1998, Neoliberalism, Environmentalism, and Scientific Knowledge: re-defining natural resource use rights in Mexico. In. J. M. Heyman, ed. States and Illegal Practices. Berg Publishers, Oxford, UK.