I am an Assistant Professor (University Lecturer) in Development Studies at the Latin American Studies Programme and a permanent staff member at the Institute for History. My work challenges economicist approaches to development by engaging with questions of stratification, oppression, and power, with a current focus on structural poverty, inequality, and migration. While my empirical research primarily focuses on the Andean region, I engage with broader issues of power from a global perspective. Situated within development studies and informed by political economy and the anthropology of the state, my research employs an intersectional approach that examines how social stratification shapes political subjectivities in post-colonised territories. I also teach courses on political economy, informality, and social policy.

More information about Maria Gabriela Palacio Ludeña

Research

My research expertise lies in social policy, poverty, and inequality in Latin American societies, focusing on the impact of neoliberalism and conservatism on social protection and providing a political economy critique of technocratic poverty alleviation strategies.

Building on my previous work on poverty and inequality in Latin America, I focus on exclusion and otherness resulting from social institutions of difference, such as gender, sexuality, age, migration status, and race. I have examined the role of digital infrastructures and informality in welfare provisioning in light of systemic changes and increased migration.

From a critical development studies perspective, I explore the (dis)continuities of neoliberalism as implemented through social policies in the Latin American region, emphasizing social citizenship and the recent authoritarian shift in the area, which has patriarchal and conservative elements. My research investigates how social policies can perpetuate, rather than mitigate, existing social stratification structures and power dynamics, reproducing various forms of discrimination, exclusion, oppression, and increasing violence.

I have written about alternative social assistance reforms in response to systemic challenges, including the COVID-19 pandemic, and explored novel alternatives, such as universal basic income. Additionally, I have engaged in collaborative projects to understand intra- and extra-regional south-north migration.

I completed an edited volume titled "Política Social, Pobreza y Desigualdad en el Ecuador 1980-2021," which analyses Ecuador's social policy trends over the past four decades. The book offers a comprehensive study of the state's role in shaping social policy, how it has evolved across three constitutions and the stability or volatility of social policy changes in a rapidly changing political context.

Another collaborative project, "Upsetting Binaries and Hierarchies: Queer Labour Economics," draws on Queer Linguistics and Queer Economics to address queer exclusion and oppression. This project not only addresses the growing precarity and decline of working conditions but also examines how workers resist interconnected forms of oppression exacerbated by a regressive and conservative shift in the region. It highlights how the distribution of rights and security for queer workers varies greatly, particularly in an area where hierarchies of race and sexuality intersect.

Fields of interest

Development studies, social policy, neoliberalism, welfare, inequality, migration, political economy, ethnography, informality.

Grants and awards

In 2021, the Humanities JEDI Fund supported the project "Upsetting Binaries and Hierarchies: Queer Labour Economics." This grant facilitated our interdisciplinary work on examining and challenging normative views, material manifestations, and discursive practices in the labour market from a queer perspective.

Additionally, the Humanities Research Traineeship Programme, Faculty of Humanities, provided funding for the "Queer Labour Economics" project. This grant enabled research into forms of discrimination and exclusion related to sexual orientation within the labour market in Brazil and Ecuador.

Furthermore, I collaborated on the "Critical Theories and Pedagogies" project, which received the Innovation of Education grant from the Faculty of Humanities. This grant supported the development of innovative educational practices and curricula grounded in critical theories and pedagogies.

Curriculum Vitae

I am an Assistant Professor of Development Studies specialising in social policy and poverty in Latin American societies. I hold a PhD in Development Studies from the International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam (ISS), where my research focused on welfare provision in Latin America from a gendered and generational perspective. I also have a Master's degree in Development Studies from ISS, an M.Sc. in Non-Governmental Organizations Management and Social Economy from the Universitat de València, and a BA in Economics from Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador.

My teaching covers a range of topics, including the political economy of Latin America, social policy and social reproduction, social justice, nation-building processes in Latin America, neoliberalism, informality, and labour segregation. I aim to engage students in dialogue with various literature streams, fostering an environment that encourages academic conversation, critical thinking, and awareness of hierarchies and power dynamics.

I supervise BA, MA, and PhD theses and contribute to the BA in International Studies, the MA in International Relations, and the MA in European Politics and Societies, alongside my teaching in the Latin American Studies program. My research and teaching primarily focus on Latin America, but I am open to collaborating with students researching social exclusion, social justice, inequality, poverty, labour economics, gender and queer epistemologies, and social policy.

I have published in prestigious journals such as Development and Change, Journal of International Development, and Population and Development Review, and have presented my work at international conferences like DSA, LASA, SLAS, and EADI. Additionally, I have led collaborative interdisciplinary research projects and co-edited volumes on social policy and fragmented citizenship in Latin America.

Key publications

Jara H. X Palacio Ludeña M G (2024), Rethinking social assistance amid the COVID‐19 pandemic: Guaranteeing the right to income security in Ecuador, Journal of International Development: 1-27. Read

Palacio Ludeña M.G. (2021), Falling through the cracks: digital infrastructures of social protection in Ecuador, Development and Change 52(4): 805-828. Read

Activities