Field Experience

I have conducted field work in Colombia since 2010 and currently have worked on the intersection of climate security, migration, and reintegration in 15 countries throughout the Arab, African, European, South Asian, and Latin American regions.

My work traces the daily lived experiences of those who take up and lay down arms in contexts of organized violence as well as the communities who receive them. I integrate a human-centered approach with systems-level engagement to bridge research and practice.

As a part of this, I spent 15 mos with a community within an informal housing settlement of ex-FARC members and conflict victims in Caquetá, Colombia.

Over the summer of 2019, I conducted exploratory field work in the state of Sinaloa, Mexico, initiating a comparative project intended to broaden and deepen our knowledge of the relationships between gendered understandings of family roles and youth decisions to take up and lay down arms.

Much of this field research has occurred either through or alongside intervening organizations, affording me the opportunity to further investigate the way in which organizational and team dynamics shape the intervention encounter - i.e., those physical spaces, social processes, and broader dynamics that comprise in situ what would be referred to in technical terms as “program implementation.”  

I have worked across sectors in peacebuilding, reconciliation, land restitution, policy implementation, and rehabilitation interventions in Colombian state agencies, international and local NGOs, private philanthropic initiatives, religious organizations, and international cooperation agencies, including the IOM / UN Migration Agency's Program for Reintegration and Prevention of Recruitment.