Greetings!
I am a biologist and agroecologist from Colombia interested in the construction of sustainable and fair food systems, and their implications for biodiversity conservation. I use multiple theories, methods, lines of evidence, and tools for data analysis to obtain a holistic understanding of agri-food systems, and I privilege mixed-methods and synthetic-systemic approaches to research.
My path was been everything but linear. As a biologist, I was interested in understanding the linkages between animal behavior, developmental biology, and ecophysiology of dart poison frogs. My direction changed abruptly when I had the opportunity of living in a School serving indigenous children as part of an interdisciplinary internship in the Colombian eastern valleys. Frog decision-making was complex, and inspire me to understand decision-making in people struggling to survive in a world of everlasting change.
My research in socioecological systems has been largely shaped by my PhD degree in Environmental Studies from the University of California in Santa Cruz (UCSC). I engaged in a journey to better understand the multifaceted relationships between bees, people, and agriculture in the Colombian Andes. I have worked at the Alexander von Humboldt Institute in Colombia trying to better understand the interplay of agrobiodiversity, gender, and livelihoods in the post-conflict Colombian Caribbean. I have had the privilege of being a Carson Fellow at the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society in Germany, which inspired me to re-explore relationships between bees and people. Currently, I conduct interdisciplinary research at Tulane University to design coffee systems in Honduras.
CV Marcela Cely Santos
Interdisciplinary research
I believe bridging different bodies of knowledge as well as different knowledge systems helps to better grasp the complexity of our world––and paths to transform it.
These days I integrate elements from ethnoecology, cultural ecology and political
ecology to understand how farmers' worldviews and ecological knowledge, and their socio-political context, influence their relationships with the land and other creatures.
I hope to facilitate the co-production of management guidelines that integrate farmers'
innovation skills to encourage biodiverse communities in their lands. That may
help us learn "the arts of noticing, or how to love [more] a [native bee pollinator]" (Tsing)
Participatory research and science communication
I believe the most legitimate door to conservation is understanding and relating. Communicating western-scientific findings to broader audiences offers additional elements that local communities can incorporate into their ecological knowledge and nurture their "arts of noticing". But beyond that, western-scientific approaches need to be better contextualized to have positive social impacts. Participatory research approaches promote the inclusion of the experience/expertise, perceptions, and concerns of local communities in the co-production of situated knowledge and hence, the role of western science in problem solving. Moreover, engaging in dialogues of knowledges in which different knowledge systems engage in equal interchange and co-learning can be a powerfuld and fair path to revitalizing and co-producing more conciliatory relationships with other co-inhabitants of the world.
I have worked with a group of young professionals in Colombia also interested in building a space to exchange knowledge and to work towards community revitalization. You're welcome to visit pejaniaira and the renewed version of this initiative: http://profesionalesamigos.org/ if you want to know more.
Arts-science alliances
My academic background is in biology, yet I've always been driven to explore other fields of knowledge and expression. I'm interested in arts as a way of rethinking and rebuilding the world, and in exploring other systems of knowledge and worldviews to widen my own. I've engaged in photography as a tool to share views about the life of more-than-humans, and I work with three artists in Colectivo cuenco con las manos to share stories about bees.
To see some individual work about bees, please visit this site.