PhD Student, Geography and the Environment
Laura Botero is a PhD student in Geography and the Environment at the University of Texas at Austin. Her research examines the socio-environmental transformations driven by mineral extraction in the Colombian-Venezuelan Amazon. Through collaborative ethnographic work with Indigenous Uwottüja communities, she explores how extractive frontiers are produced and contested through everyday practices of survival, care and resistance. Her work investigates how communities mobilize collectively amid extractive violence, state neglect and the legal uncertainties around Indigenous rights.
Her background in psychology and Latin American Studies informs her interdisciplinary approach to understanding the social, spatial and political dimensions of extractive frontiers. She has worked with non-governmental organizations supporting community-based initiatives on human rights and environmental justice in Venezuela. Her commitment to collaborative and engaged scholarship reflects a broader effort to build bridges between academia and grassroots mobilization for social change.