Accessibility statement

Laura Muñoz López

Education

Laura holds an MSc in International Relations from IBEI (Istitut Barcelona d’Estudins Internacionals) an international research and teaching centre supported by the five public universities of Catalonia. Laura has been working for more than eleven years after her undergraduate degree in Business and Economics from the Universitat de Barcelona and the Open University of Catalonia.

After years of professional experience in the private sector, as a senior financial assistant and developing information networks as a project assistant in the IT department, her personal interest in development as well as in politics leaded her to start an MSc in International Relations with the pathway of International Political Economy from 2010 to 2012. Her Master's dissertation was about land rights in Ethiopia and the current land grabbing, aiming to clarify what factors intervene in the strategies that local communities develop due to a hamper in their customary rights.

Experience

Laura has also actively collaborated in two Catalan NGOs. El Casal dels Infants is an awarded NGO working with local children and mothers at risk of social exclusion in Barcelona’s poorest neighbourhoods; and Setem is a Spanish NGO devoted to sensitization campaigns about fair trade and working conditions in developing countries, especially in food production and clothing sectors. Setem tries to improve links and solidarity between the Global North and South. Last year Laura has visited and lived in one community in Velingara (Senegal) with a group of Setem members, sharing experiences and views with local people, as well as with local and global NGOs and social workers in the field.

Research

Laura joined the CAHR in October 2012 and the aim of her PhD is to explore how the current wave of land grabs in developing countries is affecting land rights of local people in African countries and how communities view and protect their rights over tenure systems and livelihoods. Her research also aims at contributing to theories of change from below as a counterbalance to economic globalization.

Laura is supervised by Professor Paul Gready and Dr Jonathan Ensor.

Contact details

E-mail: lml515@york.ac.uk