Dr Natalia Buitron

Natalia Buitron is an anthropologist exploring political subjectivities, indigeneity, and development, specifically how broader political and economic forms interweave with moral transformation in daily life. She has researched, written and taught on a wide range of issues pertaining to indigenous-state relations, (in)equality, intercultural education, writing and childhood.

Academic interests

Natalia Buitron’s academic interests include: 

• Indigenous social movements and institutions
• Politics at the state’s periphery
• Missionisation
• Egalitarianism, autonomy and mutuality
• Self-governance and vernacular democracy
• Moral and social transformation.

Degrees obtained

• BA, University of Siena.
• MSc, LSE.
• PhD, LSE.

Awards and prizes

• Best Article Award, Latin American Studies Association, Amazonia Section, 2021.
• Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship, 2020.
• Firth Prize, Best PhD paper Research Seminar on Anthropological Theory, 2016.
• Rosemary and Raymond Firth Award, 2015.
• Alfred Gell Research Award, 2013.
• MSc Dissertation Edvard Westermarck Prize (MSc, LSE), 2011.

Biography

Prior to joining Cambridge, Natalia was  a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in the Department of International Development (ODID) at Oxford. In her PhD she studied the dilemma of pursuing indigenous independence through state formation. Her research connects indigenous politics, political theory, and Amazonian history. Currently she explores the emergence of alternative sovereignties as indigenous activists respond to environmental degradation, violence and displacement.

Other interests

Partner dancing, cinema, hiking.