Elybeth Sofia Alcantar

I am a doctoral student in the Department of Geography and Environment at the University of Texas at Austin. 
I received my M.A. of Latin American Studies with emphasis in Anthropology & Geography from San Diego State University, 2021. I hold a B.A. Latin American Studies with minors in Geography & Spanish from California State University, Chico, 2019. 

As a first-generation scholar, I became committed to understanding my family’s forced displacement and migration, participation in social movements in Oaxaca, and place-making practices in California; eventually, finding the academic discipline of Geography as a profound place to do so.

My current research is supervised by feminist geographer, Dr. Rebecca Maria Torres, and feminist political ecologist, Dr. Caroline Faria.
I have several years of experience collaborating with community engaged research, ethnographic research, and narrative based research on migration, environment-human relationships, and agricultural development policies of Indigenous communities of the Mixteca region of Oaxaca, Mexico and their diaspora in California, United States.

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• Political ecology and natural resources

• Community managed natural resources

• Indigenous politics & sovereignties

• Climate change adaptation efforts

• Forced migration and forced displacement

• Grassroots and community driven development efforts

 

In Summer of 2023 , under the supervision of dr. Laurel Mei-Singh I participated in environmental  research of the Mākua Valley in Wai 'ianae, Hawai'i.  Under the supervision of Dr. Bjorn Sletto, I participated in a 2022-2023 year-long study of climate risk and adaptation efforts of Afro-descendent communities in an informal settlement of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

My projects have been featured in museum installations such as Arte Américas’s exhibit, “Boom, Oaxaca,” in Fresno, California. I also have a published peer-reviewed article in the journal, Latino Studies.  I have a Perspectives Blog on Natural Resource Defense Council's website. All my writing projects can be found in the following pages in this website.