Columba González-Duarte | More than Butterflies: A Look at the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere in Mexico

Columba holds a Ph.D. in sociocultural anthropology at the University of Toronto with a joint degree at the School of Environment. After graduation in 2019, Dr. Gonzalez-Duarte gained a postdoctoral fellowship at the Department of Geography and Planning of the University of Toronto and the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity. She recently started a position as an Assistant Professor in the department of Sociology and Anthropology at Mount Saint Vincent University, in Halifax Nova Scotia. Her research interests are related to monarch butterfly tri-national conservation dynamics exploring the connections between NAFTA’s agri-food industry, labour migration, and monarchs decline. She has also worked with scientific and Indigenous communities that co-habitate with this butterfly across Canada, the United States and Mexico. Columba is currently working on her research project, “Convergent Migrations,” and finishing a book based on her doctoral research.

Further Reading:

Columba Gonzalez-Duarte, “Butterflies, organized crime, and “sad trees”: A critique of the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve Program in a context of rural violence,” World Development. (2021) Vol 142.

https://www.columbagonzalez.com/post/butterflies_and_organized_crime