I joined the School of Social and Political Sciences in April 2021 as Lecturer in Global Economy. Previously, I worked on two interdisciplinary projects: Colombia River Stories: improving socio-environmental understandings for building sustainable peace (ESRC-Newton Caldas) and Water and Fire: Enhancing Capacity and Reducing Risk through 15 'Best Bets' for Transformative Adaptation with Vulnerable Residents on the Cape Flats (Global Challenges Research Fund - GCRF). In 2017, I held an ESRC-GCRF Fellowship also here at the School of Social and Political Sciences, researching the development implications of illicit economies in the Global South. I was awarded my PhD in 2016 in History at the School of Humanities, University of Glasgow, where I held a Lord Kelvin-Adam Smith Scholarship.

My research examines the political economies of transnational illicit commodities in Latin America. I interrogate the intersections of illicit economies with processes of state-making and conflict, political transition, socio-environmental crises, and the livelihood strategies of marginalised communities.  My work intervenes in debates around the causes of drug violence in Latin America, the development of the state in post-colonial contexts, democratic development and the dynamics of socio-environmental conflict. I have conducted extensive fieldwork in Bolivia and Colombia, using oral history interviews, archival sources and participatory methods to map illicit economies and their effects. 

My research engages with vital policy debates around the failures of the 'war on drugs' in Latin America and the search for more humane and effective alternatives. I have collaborated on knowledge exchange activities with Christian Aid and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit GmbH (GIZ) on pathways to integrating the Sustainable Development Goals into policy responses.

• The political economy of illicit commodities
• The state in post-colonial contexts and political transition
• Socio-environmental conflict
• US-Latin American relations
• International development

List by: Type | Date

• Co-applicant – Responding to COVID-19 in Chocó, Colombia (£148,714), Scottish Funding Council – Global Challenges Research Fund, COVID-19 Rapid Response (April 2020).
• Co-applicant – Developing Community Arts-Based Methods for Socio-Environmental Advocacy in Chocó, Colombia (£13,600), ESRC Impact Acceleration Award (November 2019).
• Co-applicant – Water Stories: indirect impacts of socio-environmental conflict on community health in Chocó, Colombia (£73,000), Scottish Funding Council – Global Challenges Research Fund (April 2019).
• Co-applicant – Colombia River Stories: supporting socio-environmental advocacy (£13,400), Glasgow Knowledge Exchange Fund (January 2019).
• Principal investigator – Addressing the Development Implications of Illicit Economies in the Global South (€60,000), grant agreement with the Global Partnership on Drug Policy and Development (GPDPD) at GIZ (December 2017).
• Principal investigator – Illicit Drug Economies, Governance and the Security-Development Nexus in the Global South (£92,589), ESRC Global Challenges Research Fund Fellowship (January 2017).

Susanna Karvinen, College of Social Sciences PhD Scholarship: Resistance of Indigenous activists in the gender-extractivism-conflict nexus in Colombia

Please get in touch if you are interested in doing a PhD that relates to my research interests.

• Karvinen, Susanna
  Indigenous Resistance to Extractivism – the Intersections of Gender and Settler Colonialism
• Moroch, Dylan
  Armament and Willpower of the Barbudos: The Relationship of Weapons, Strategy, and Insurgency in the Cuban Revolution
• Piedrahita Arcila, Irene
  Beyond the use of violence

Globalisation: Critical Perspectives from the Global South (MSc) - POLITIC5099

Latin American Politics (Hons) - POLITIC4031

Research associate at the Global Drug Policy Observatory, the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research, and the Andean Information Network.