Research interests
Critical Human Geography, Feminist geographies, Decolonial perspectives, Social and Environmental Justice, Indigenous studies.
Postdoctoral Research Associate (PDRA) (2022-2025)
Project: "Ixchel: Building understanding of the physical, cultural and socio-economic drivers of risk for strengthening resilience in the Guatemalan cordillera". School of GeoSciences, University of Edinburgh.
The objective of the project is to investigate multi-hazards associated with mass flows, namely landslides, debris flows and volcanic pyroclastic flows, that occur in the Guatemalan cordillera. The project seeks to explicitly connect Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) with broader decolonising processes and practices. My specific role engages in ethnographic, participatory and qualitative fieldwork in Guatemala as a critical geographer and decolonial scholar. Funded by UKRI/GCRF (UK).
Profile: https://www.research.ed.ac.uk/en/persons/ana-cabrera-pacheco
Publications from this work
Ixqui Ajtz’utjila; Reanda Sapalú, D.; Cabrera Pacheco, A.J. (2025). Mujeres Tz'utujiles: Recetas para la Recuperación en Chuk Muk [Tz'utujil Women: Recipes for Recovery in Chuk Muk]. The University of Edinburgh. https://doi.org/10.2218/ED.9781836451259
Cabrera Pacheco, A.; Cupples, J.; Gleghorn, C.; Puac, C.A.; Ribeiro, R. (2024). Desastre, Reconstrucción, Liderazgo. Sistematización de las experiencias tras el deslave de Panabaj de 2005 [Disaster, Reconstruction, Leadership. Systematisation of experiences after the Panabaj landslide of 2005]. The University of Edinburgh. https://doi.org/10.2218/ED.9781836450658
Calder, E., Armijos, T., Sala, C., Petzey, A., Reanda Sapalú, D., Cabrera Pacheco, A., Sosof, M., McKean, T. (2024). Santiago Atitlán - Una excursión sobre cultura, riesgo y reasentamiento [Santiago Atitlán – An excursion on culture, risk and resettlement]. Gaceta de la Asociación Latinoamericana de Volcanología, Edición Especial Cities on Volcanoes 18, 23-29. Available here.
In preparation
Cabrera Pacheco, A.J.; Reanda Sapalú, D.; MacKenzie, L.; Armijos Burneo, T. Plants for Recovery: Indigenous Women’s experiences in a post-disaster resettlement in Guatemala. In: O’Grady, N. & Sou, G. (eds.) Disaster Geographies: Places, Processes, Events and the Human Geographical Imagination. Rowman and Littlefield (expected publication December 2025).
Cabrera Pacheco, A.J.; Cupples, J.; Calder, E. (to be submitted to Antipode in 2025). “Beyond refugee camps and post-disaster shelters: the construction of liminal geographies in Guatemala”.
Cabrera Pacheco, A.J.; Martínez Rodas, A. (to be submitted to the Comparative Population Studies in 2025). “Forced to move, forced to stay: Disasters and resettlement processes in Guatemala”.
Postdoctoral Researcher [Estancia Posdoctoral] (2020-2021)
Own project: “From the Maya Solar: Food Sovereignty in Biocultural Territories in the Peninsula of Yucatán” ["Desde el solar maya: Soberanía alimentaria en los territorios bioculturales de la Península de Yucatán"].
The objective of my project was to analyse the importance of the Maya Solar as a resilient way of living towards food sovereignty of Indigenous families in the biocultural territories in the Peninsula of Yucatán. El Colegio de la Frontera Sur (Ecosur), Departamento de Sociedad y Cultura, Grupo Procesos Culturales y Construcción Social de Alternativas. Funded by Conacyt (México).
Publications from this work
Cabrera Pacheco, A.J. (2025). Building biocultural territories from the family solar in the Peninsula of Yucatán, Mexico. In D. Morales, L. Sariego, & T. Teixeira (Eds.), Territories and development: Theories, debates and cases from Latin America. (pp. 84-101). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781032650241
Cabrera Pacheco, A.J. (2025). Traditions and territories of Maya women in the Peninsula of Yucatán. Gender, Place & Culture. 32(5), 775-795. https://doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2024.2443210
Cabrera Pacheco, A.J. (2022). Construyendo territorios bioculturales desde el solar familiar en la Península de Yucatán, México. En D. Morales, L. Sariego, & T. Teixeira (Eds.), Territorios y desarrollo: Teorías, debates y casos desde América Latina (pp. 136-161). Universidad de Costa Rica, Vicerrectoría de Investigación, CICAP. [Open access].
Cabrera Pacheco, A.J. (2022). La (re)producción de las tradiciones agroalimentarias en los solares mayas de la Península de Yucatán, México. Estudios Sociales. Revista de Alimentación Contemporánea y Desarrollo Regional. 32(60). https://doi.org/10.24836/es.v32i60.1263
Publications and fieldwork photographs available in: https://elsolarmayayucateco.wordpress.com/