Resilience Otherwise: Situated Risk Knowledge and Data Justice in Guatemala, Bolivia, and Ecuador

Title (eng)
Resilience Otherwise: Situated Risk Knowledge and Data Justice in Guatemala, Bolivia, and Ecuador
Author
Andrea Forero Cañizares
Advisor
Patrick Brodie
Advisor
Ana Ferreira
Description (eng)
As climate change continues to reshape livelihoods and territories, disaster risk reduction and resilience-building programs have expanded, often relying on large-scale data apparatuses such as early warning systems and impact assessments. Decolonial disaster studies have reflected on how these data systems can overlook historical and power hierarchies, reproduce colonial and neoliberal knowledge frameworks, and become detached from the land relations of the communities they intend to serve. In contrast, community-led and NGO-driven initiatives across Latin America are advancing alternative data practices grounded in Indigenous knowledge, participatory methods, and local sovereignty. However, limited attention has been paid to how these communitarian data systems contribute to—or challenge—principles of data justice. Addressing this gap, this thesis explores three case studies from Guatemala, Bolivia, and Ecuador that mobilise art-based methods, citizen science, bioindicators, and open data to foster resilience. Drawing on decolonial disaster studies, Indigenous data sovereignty, and critical data studies, the research analyses how these initiatives align with or challenge the procedural, rights-based, instrumental, and structural dimensions of data justice, as framed by Heeks and Shekhar (2019). The analysis contributes three insights. Data Territories highlights the need to acknowledge the interconnectedness between land, body, and data when crafting risk and resilience programs by emphasizing land’s agency, relational capacities, and transformation amid colonialism. Data in Place underscores the importance of localized and situated resilience and identifies the case studies as forms of data activism or counter-data actions. Data Material/Epistemologies stresses the significance of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches for advancing Southern epistemologies that bridge, on equal footing, Indigenous and scientific ways of knowing within Latin America.
Keywords (eng)
decolonial resiliencedisastersdata justicedata assemblagesindigenous knowledgeland relationsLatin America
Type (eng)
Master theses
Language
[eng]
Persistent identifier
https://door.donau-uni.ac.at/o:5730
Date created
2025
License
All rights reserved