This is our core team of researchers for the project. They have been supported by the rest of the Secretariat team and its executive.

Evelyn V. Encalada Grez, doctoral candidate at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto, Researcher

Evelyn's research interests include migration, political economy and Latin America. Evelyn has worked in El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala and Honduras with the Central American Network in Solidarity with Women Maquila Workers. She has also worked on various projects in her native Chile. Aside from her academic work, she is also a community organizers within the Latin American community in Toronto and rural Ontario. She is a founding member of Justice for Migrant Farm Workers that promotes the human and labour rights of migrant farm workers in Canada.

Dr. Kate Ervine, Department of Political Science at York University, Researcher

Kathryn Ervine received her Honours Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees from the University of Toronto and the University of Guelph respectively, each with a double-major in International Development and Political Science. In between studies she has lived and worked in Chiapas Mexico, representing a local NGO in its work with UNICEF’s Proyecto Escuelas Amigas. Her current research interests include the political ecology of environment and development, with a specific focus on international policy formulations and their local impacts and manifestations. 

Paula-Andrea Hevia-Pacheco , doctoral candidate, Department of Political Science at York University, Researcher

Paula's doctoral dissertation is entitled "Gender Politics in Chiapas: State, Women and Social Change" and focuses on the challenges women face in Southern Mexico in their struggle for autonomy and change. She is currently co-ordinating a research project of the Secretariat entitled Grassroots Networks and Women’s Struggle Against Poverty: A Study of the Women’s Development Network in Costa Rica. This project attempts to examine the potential of grassroots networks and reciprocal exchange relationships among women for their subsistence strategies and political agency.

Dr. Krista Hunt, International Secretariat for Human Development, Postdoctoral Research Fellow

Krista's teaching and research interests include gender and violence, transnational feminist organizing, post-war on terror reconstruction and development, and the antifeminist politics of contemporary imperialism. She is completing a co-edited volume with Kim Rygiel, entitled (En)Gendering the War on Terror: War Stories and Camouflaged Politics (London: Ashgate, forthcoming Spring 2006).

Vivian Jimenez, doctoral candidate, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto, Researcher

Vivian was born in Guatemala City and migrated to Canada in 1988. She received her Bachelors degree (BES) in 1997 and Masters degree (MES) in 2002 from the Faculty of Environmental Studies at York. During her MES, a personal interest in indigenous knowledge and struggles for culturally relevant education and research methods took her through Chiapas, Mexico, where she collaborated with the CELALI (Centro Estatal de Lengua, Arte y Literatura Indígena) and local community members to apply indigenous research methods as a tool to advance the struggle for indigenous autonomy. Her current research interests include the application of indigenous knowledge for education and human development; anti-colonial discourse; and effects of internalized racism and cultural dislocation for immigrants in Canada.

Sarah Macharia, Department of Political Science at York University, Contributing Researcher

Sarah has over ten years professional experience in gender and human development at African civil society and international organisation levels. She has consulted for the African Centre for Women – United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ACW-UNECA) and for the Water and Sanitation Program (Africa) of the World Bank. Her research focuses on policy discourse on the ‘informal’ economy in the Global South, with special attention to the gender dimensions of policy responses, drawing on case studies of Nairobi and Durban City.

Dolores Figueroa Romero, doctoral candidate, Department of Sociology, York University, Researcher

Dolores' conducted her fieldwork in Ecuador and Nicaragua for her dissertation titled, “Comparative Analysis of Indigenous Women’s Participation in Local Politics and Community Development: The Experiences of Women Leaders of ECUARUNARI (Ecuador) and YATAMA (Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua).” This research is focused on Miskitu (Nicaragua) and Kichwa (Ecuador) women´s participation in indigenous organizations and local affairs. Indigenous women, a subordinated group within their communities, are “trespassing” the boundaries of indigenous political activism, challenging the essentialist identity politics embraced by indigenous male leaders. 

Tina Virmani, doctoral student, Department of Political Science at York University, Contributing Researcher

Tina's research interests include : postcolonial, feminist and gender studies, political economy, nationalism and identity, the politics of knowledge production, particularly in relation to the fields of gender and development and women’s human rights and feminist knowledge production in India, and the production of consent/complicity to regimes of power. She has recently won the Canadian Women's Studies Association graduate essay prize , for her paper entitled "Gender, Nationalism and the Regulation of Globalization in India ” (April 2006). She also won the Douglas Verney Prize for the best Master's Research Paper in Political Science at York in 2006.