BC3. Basque centre for climate change – Klima aldaketa ikergai

Short CV

I was born on a farm, somewhere in what was later called the 'emptied Spain'. I grew up among goats and peach trees until I moved to the big city as a teenager. I studied Environmental Sciences in Málaga, an MSc in Applied Ecology in Halmstad (Sweden), and another MSc in Environmental Hydrology in Granada. At that point, I realized that this knowledge was insufficient to answer the fundamental question of why do we continue to cause environmental harm. I decided to pursue a PhD in Human Geography at the University of Seville, in collaboration with Ecological Economics teams from the Institute for Environmental Sciences and Technology (ICTA) in Barcelona. During this period, I participated in my first European project, SWAN (Sustainable Water Action). Through my involvement in SWAN, I twice visited the University of Arizona in Tucson (USA). There I met an incredible group of young interdisciplinary scholars from all over the wolrd. We decided to experiment with a common case study on Tucson water governance and finally published a book. After four years, I could articulate what my PhD was about: combining qualitative and quantitative methods in a framework for assessing water management in two arid watersheds in Arizona and Almería. At the time of my defense, I felt maybe I could try become a researcher.

Luckily, I was hired as a postdoc 'data-cruncher' for another European project, MAGIC - Moving towards Adaptive Governance in Complexity. MAGIC was an intense experience in project coordination and interdisciplinary collaboration. I learned from postnormal science scholars about extended peer communities and uncertainty. My expertise expanded from water to energy and food supply chains, and I contributed to the development of a science for governance approach named Quantitative Story Telling. During those years, I also joined a training program in group facilitation that was immensely transformative on many levels. I moved to Bilbao to start a family. This life change led me to ask myself what I really dreamed of my research, and I decided to shift towards qualitative and participatory research approaches.

In January 2021, I joined BC3 thanks to a Juan de la Cierva fellowship. I initiated a 3 year participatory research focussed on the environmental conflict surrounding the Mar Menor lagoon in Murcia (SE Spain). I did not depart from a predefined theoretical framework for this process but it is slowly emerging out of data analysis and readings on societal polarisation, knowledge coproduction, transformations to sustainability, conflict transformation and relational and affect theory. Most importantly, I have become big fan of feminist scholars like Donna Haraway, Anna Tsing, María Puig de la Bellacasa, Rosi Braidotti, Marisol de la Cadena or Karen Barad. These encounters are gradually shaping a new way of understanding the problems I care about and my role as a researcher. Since January 2023 I am Ramón y Cajal fellow for up to 5 years. I plan to further explore how societal polarization, by mixing justice advocates and populist interests, shape environmnetal policy outcomes and how we can create spaces for divided narratives, affects and values to at least talk about important matters of care.

For more formal details about this journey, you can download my CV below or visit my blog at violetacabello.net.

Journal Articles

BC3 Working Papers & Policy Briefings