Dr Karen Tucker
PHD(Bristol), MSC(Bristol), MSC(Bristol), BA(Bristol)
Expertise
Current positions
Senior Lecturer in Politics
School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies
Contact
Press and media
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Research interests
My research focuses on the colonial politics of knowledge that shape encounters with indigenous knowledges, bodies and natures, and the decolonial practices that can reveal and remake them.
I have a longstanding interest in the politics of indigenous knowledge and biodiversity, and the global objects and frameworks of governance that are being constructed in an attempt to reduce biopiracy and misappropriation. I am currently completing a book manuscript that encapsulates more than a decade of research on these topics, focusing in particular on the colonial politics of knowledge that have been contested and reproduced through work on these issues in the World Trade Organisation and World Intellectual Property Organisation.
Building directly on this research, I am also developing new projects on the political ontology of reforestation, and the potential of indigenous knowledges to contribute to culturally- and ecologically-sensitive tree-planting for climate change mitigation, the latter in collaboration with researchers at the Université de Genève and the Universidad Austral in Chile, and Mapuche Pehuenche communities in the Araucanía region of Chile.
My previous research has examined peace activism in Peru and Colombia, legacies of forced sterilisation in Peru (in the award-winning Quipu project), and the politics of global resistance.
Projects and supervisions
Research projects
Dissonance: Governing Knowledge and Biodiversity Across Disparate Worlds
Principal Investigator
Description
Multi-sited ethnography following the struggle to define and govern access to 'traditional knowledge' and 'biodiversity' from the Peruvian Andes to World Trade Organisation (WTO) and World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO)…Managing organisational unit
School of Sociology, Politics and International StudiesDates
01/06/2018 to 31/05/2022
Peace Festival: Sharing Creative Methodologies for Unearthing Hidden War Stories for Peace
Principal Investigator
Role
Co-Investigator
Description
Wars and conflicts shape societies worldwide. In the last two decades, Latin America's truth and reconciliation projects, and its attempts at transitional justice, have often been used as model for…Managing organisational unit
Department of Hispanic, Portuguese and Latin American StudiesDates
01/11/2016 to 31/12/2017
Building Bridges for Reconciliation and Peacebuilding: Colombian Overseas Collaborators and University of Bristol Researchers
Principal Investigator
Role
Principal Investigator
Description
We expect to build a bridge that connects the existent experiences, expertise, development needs and on-going initiatives in Colombia, with UoB research interests and agendas. These encounters will catalyse collaborative…Dates
01/10/2016 to 31/07/2017
Seeds, Soil, and Social Change
Principal Investigator
Role
Principal Investigator
Description
'Seeds, Soil, and Social Change' analyses how scholars and community expertise variously co-produce knowledge through the material and social inter-relationships of seeds, soil, and social practice. Cabot Institute support is…Dates
01/12/2013 to 31/07/2014
REACT proposal - Brown and Tucker
Principal Investigator
Role
Co-Principal Investigator
Description
Provides a platform for participatory story-telling, focused on the mass forced sterilizations in 1990s Peru.Managing organisational unit
School of Modern LanguagesDates
01/10/2013 to 01/04/2014
Thesis supervisions
Publications
Recent publications
20/08/2020Non-verbal communication, emotions, and tensions in the co-production of memory
Emotion, Space and Society
Hierarchies, Erasures and Appropriations of Knowledge
Postcolonial Governmentalities
Unraveling coloniality in international relations
International Political Sociology
Unconsented Sterilisation, Participatory Story-Telling, and Digital Counter-Memory in Peru
Antipode
Participation and Subjectification in Global Governance
Millennium
Thesis
Governing global civil society : the WTO, NGOs and the politics of traditional knowledge and biodiversity
Supervisors
Award date
01/01/2011
