Michelle Escobar Cruz is an economist, holding a Master of Science in Rural Development, and she is a PhD candidate in Sustainability Science. Michelle was raised by her afrodescendant grandmother in a village in Chiapas, México, where her great-grandmother was a traditional doctor supporting well-being and health of many community members. From there, Michelle’s curiosity led her to research about the role of rural women in contributing to communities. Where the field of Radical Ecological Economics has been her space to explore Decolonial Feminists approaches, acknowledging the role of native women in organizing communities for sustainable managing nature and ancestral territories, benefiting well-being and quality of life of communities. In turn, Michelle works from Communitarian Feminist approach from Guatemala, as communitarian feminists highlight importance of reciprocal relationship with territory and bodies, where a sustainable management of nature and territory should correspond to well-being of native women. Michelle’s research work is based on collaboration with rural peasant native women and communities in Mexico, deriving in her research interests such as Radical Ecological Economics, Social Economics, Political Ecology, Food Sovereignty, Decolonial Feminisms, Communitarian Feminisms, and Agroecology.

CASAS

The Collective of Agrarian Scholar-Activists from the Global South (CASAS) is a community of Scholar-Activists working in critical agrarian studies.