Contact
Biography
I have a PhD in Archaeology with focus on Historical Ecology from Uppsala University, Sweden. I earned a MSc degree in Rural Development and a BSc degree in Tourism Market Management at Eduardo Mondlane University, Mozambique. Breathing and inspired by different disciplines, domains of knowledge and personal experience about rural areas I endeavour for interdisciplinary approaches that allow a collaborative, place-based science with local communities. Thus, I am currently an interdisciplinary researcher linking environmental history, environmental archaeology, ethnobotany, historical ecology, remote sensing and GIS, oral history, heritage forests, local communities, rural and regional development, rural economy and tourism, and climate change.
Teaching Summary
I worked as a teaching assistant in Cultural Heritage Management and Contract Archaeology, Human Security and Sustainability in Tropical Ecosystems both master courses at Uppsala University, and… read more
Research Summary
Currently as a Research Associate, I am involved in an ambitious UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship project: Constructing Climate Coloniality: Histories, Knowledges and Materialities of Climate… read more
Recent Publications
I worked as a teaching assistant in Cultural Heritage Management and Contract Archaeology, Human Security and Sustainability in Tropical Ecosystems both master courses at Uppsala University, and Tourism Planning and Landscape Management, undergraduate course, at Eduardo Mondlane University.
Current Research
Currently as a Research Associate, I am involved in an ambitious UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship project: Constructing Climate Coloniality: Histories, Knowledges and Materialities of Climate Adaptation in Southern Africa. My research within the project is divided into four main themes:
(1) Food Geographies: the theme will address aspects of historical foodscapes, plantations and agricultural frontiers in Mozambique. Additionally, its goal is to map past food (in)security, more-than-human famines and authorised agricultural interventions in relation to climate change in Mozambique and beyond. To trace the social status of crops introduced in modern-day Mozambique in relations to climate variability key actions in this theme.
(2) Climate Change and Resilience: the theme deals with the reconstruction of hydroclimatic events (floods, cyclones and droughts), historical and archival mapping of environmental (mal) adaptation actions in Southern Africa with particular focus to Mozambique.
(3) Heritage Forests: this theme gravitates in the reconstruction of past landscape and forest/vegetation history using pollen records from lake sediments, understanding current environmental 'degradation narratives' in Mozambique and Africa, assessing plant species composition, diversity, ecological succession and conservation status in heritage forests.
(4) Collaboration and Community Outreach: the theme aims to basically make sure that results from previous themes is transformed in a manner that they are practical and relevant to the local communities, or how to make sure that the evidence from written sources are intelligible and usable by communities in the context of current environmental challenges.
Past Research
Spatially, most of my research experience was in rural areas of southern Mozambique. I have been particularly carrying out research activities from various projects since 2014 in the provinces of Inhambane and Gaza. In the past years, during my doctoral studies, I used oral history as a qualitative method in mapping together with local communities and their chiefs the locations of culturally protected heritage sites some of which are archaeological sites Inhambane province. From this participatory activity, we were able to map more than 50 locally protected forests in Inhambane province (Mozambique), which I later named them heritage forests. I undertook botanical and forest inventories with students, local leaders and communities in 5 heritage forests in Inhambane province, Mozambique. This activity, enable us to provide a better description about the vegetation structure and biodiversity of some of heritage forests. I have field experience in paleoecology, particularly in coring lake sediments in Inhambane. I also have laboratory experience to extracted, identified and interpreted fossil pollen, microcharcoal and phytoliths using standard protocols. By documenting the knowledge on how chiefs, local leaders and communities negotiate, authorise and legitimise heritage through memories and heritage performance, and being inspired by current discussions on Authorised Heritage Discourse, I suggested the existence of Local Authorised Heritage Discourse. Here, you can see what heritage forests in Inhambane look like.
Future Research
Through my experience within the UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship project, the research agenda aims to further the interdisciplinary connections between climate change and heritage and to bridge them with local knowledge on the past and landscapes under the community's stewardship. I am particularly interested in furthering my understanding about the dynamics of Coastal Forest Mosaics in Southern Mozambique as well as to engage local communities to formally steward their heritage sites.