The Building Land Degrowth Transitions (BuiLDT) research project is a critical analysis of the role of agrarian movements in the creation of forms of livelihood and work that do not contribute to dominant capitalist relations of production, exchange, and consumption. Through an inquiry into the material and ideological aspects of social movements' relations with the land, this research elaborates the potential of movement social relations and economies to ameliorate some of the most pressing challenges of modernity, namely the ongoing exploitation of workers as well as non-human life for industrial food production and extraction of natural resources. BuiLDT integrates ethnographic methods in Indonesia with a comparative analysis of movement organizations in California, Amazonia, and Catalonia, focusing on places of political mobilization that have gone beyond resistance and conflict to establish spaces of alternative production and exchange with strong resonance with theorized post growth and degrowth trajectories of development. Specifically, this research asks how social movements can contribute to building degrowth transitions in the countryside through reworking the forms of access, control, and productive capacities of the land. Drawing on theories from degrowth and social movement studies, BuiLDT uses ethnography and spatial history methods to understand how movements create points of leverage that enable change, and how these movements are then able to establish low-carbon and non-capitalist economies. Supervision by Professor Giorgos Kallis and affiliation with the Institute for Environmental Science and Technology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (ICTA-UAB) will provide me with leading training and career development in ecological economics, political economy/ecology, and degrowth research. In turn, I will bring expertise in agrarian change, social movements, and ethnographic approaches to ICTA and the European research community.

Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) is a highly prevalent and disabling condition experienced by ~6% of the population worldwide. Interestingly, women are twice as likely as men to suffer from MDD, and the specific mechanisms contributing to such difference are only starting to be elucidated. Chronic mild stress has been shown to reproduce in rodents some of the main traits of MDD, such as anhedonia or anxiety-like behaviour. Chronic stress has been shown to interfere with prepronociceptin (Pnoc) expression in the anterior BNST (amBNST) in rodents. Interestingly, it has been established a functional antagonistic role of Pnoc neurons over corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH)-expressing neurons, which mediate the stress response in mammals. Moreover, amBNSTPnoc neurons have been shown to support rapid arousal responses toward motivationally salient stimuli in mice. Preliminary data has demonstrated sex differences in amBNSTPnoc distribution across compartments, indicating possible sex-dependent effects of stress on amBNSTPnoc function. We aim to explore sex differences in amBNSTPnoc neurons in rapid arousal responses upon sucrose presentation and its relationship with chronic stress-driven anhedonia. To that end, rapid arousal responses in male and female mice will be studied after chronic stress in mice, and related to anhedonic-like behaviour, and Pnoc and CRH expression in compartments of the BNST. To further understand the effects of chronic stress in Pnoc neurons, calcium transients using 2-photon calcium imaging in amBNSTPnoc neurons will be studied before and after chronic stress. Chemogenetic activation of amBNSTPnoc after stress will be used to functionally test that low Pnoc expression drives hypoarousal states related to anhedonic behavior. The proposal aims to elucidate sex differences in the pathophysiology of chronic stress-driven depressive-like behaviour and provide new perspectives and ideas on the higher prevalence and treatment resistance in females.

The ‘VIA-TARIQ’ is an interdisciplinary project that aims to explore key topic among the archaeologists and historians of the Near East: what is the level of persistency/discontinuity of the Roman road system in the longue durée and what influences it had on the social and economic developments in the Medieval and modern period. The project will approach these issues through analysis of large aggregated archaeological datasets and advanced spatial modelling methods, enabled through training in these methods at the host institution. The project will significantly add to our understanding of the centuries-long change and development of the road and transport networks in the Levant. It will illuminate the long-term effects of the Roman road infrastructure on the economic developments in the Medieval and Ottoman periods. The training and research offered by the project will position the applicant as an expert in archaeological computational modelling for the study of the past and will enable him to influence paradigms and inform debates in the history and archaeology of the Near East.

Historically, intersexuality has been a paradox for scientific, biological and sociological interpretation of sex. A body that does not correspond to normal parameters imposed by the medicalization process has been elusively understood by patriarchal and feminist discourses alike. Despite the importance of the sex/gender dichotomy for second wave feminism, this false dichotomy needs to be reviewed in light of the new queer and poststructuralist theories. Such an approach works to deconstruct the traditionalist boundaries constructed between nurture and nature and to rebuild a new concept of identity that includes our bodies’ sovereignty. The aim of this proposed project is to trace a postcolonial genealogy of intersexuality in the second half of Colombia’s twentieth century. Since the late 1950, Colombian medical discourses about sexuality and gender have been influenced by John Money’s (1921-2006), and Gregorio Marañón’s (1887–1960) theories. These two endocrinologists have been decisive in the consolidation of a worldwide concept of gender in the twentieth century. By doing a historic assessment of the theories of these two renowned scientists and studying their impact on Colombian medical discourses, we expect to unveil the network of postcolonial knowledge that has contributed to building the concepts of sex and gender in the Colombian context, as well as the historical construction of the medical and juridical concept of intersexuality as a disease. Currently, we know that at least one percent of the population is born as intersexual, and Colombia is the only country where the Constitutional Court has intervened and ruled in a case of a sex assignation. Today, diverse ways of being have to be defended; the denaturalization of patriarchal and heteronormative scientific discourses will contribute to the democratization of science and to greater inclusiveness in relation to gender diversity.