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Karla Oliveira

Karla Oliveira

Biography

Karla Oliveira is currently a PhD. student in the Department of Anthropology and Archaeology at the University of Calgary. She got MSc. in Environmental and Rural Development at the University of Brasilia in 2018 with topics on the expansion of the agricultural frontier and its implications for traditional populations in the Matopiba region. This territory is one of the most aggressive agricultural frontiers of the world, which has been jeopardizing traditional territories and stimulating deforestation. She worked for 5 years (2013-2017) as a technical analyst of the “Water for All” program, a public policy with the aim of guaranteeing water security to more than 1 million families in extreme poverty in Brazil. She also worked for 3 years (2009-2011) as a coordinator at the Brazilian Environmental Ministry during Workers Party’s administration. 

Her current research topics include water grabbing and water appropriation, the advance of the agricultural frontier, land grabbing, agrarian extractivism, and the implications for traditional populations and aboriginal peoples in Brazil. Her PhD. thesis will explore how and to what extent land-water grabbing strategies are changing the hydrosocial cycle and water governance in Brazil. She will focus on traits and patterns of different water users in regions with different degrees of water availability (tropical forests, savannahs, and semiarid regions).

Email: karla.oliveira@ucalgary.ca