Sofia is an interdisciplinary environmental scientist working on the political ecology of energy and climate change. She holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Sciences (ICTA-UAB), an MSc in Sustainability and Ecological Economics (ICTA-UAB), and a Bachelor’s in International Relations (UNAM). Her doctoral research placed the expansion of renewable energies and related conflicts as a key question for environmental justice, arguing for a democratic downscale of the global energy metabolism and a redistributive approach in national energy transitions.
Her work focuses in bringing the specificities of the Global South into debates around environmental justice and degrowth. In this light, she seeks to open spaces for de-colonial conversations between the social movements and post-development theories in the Global South, with the growing Degrowth movement in the Global North. She co-coordinated the edition in Mexico of the Degrowth Vocabulary (edited by Giacomo Dalisa, Federico Demaria, and Giorgos Kallis), with a special section on Latinamerican Perspectives, organizing different roundtables between academics and practitioners of the Americas and Europe. She is currently an Associate Researcher at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and member of the Environmental Justice Research Group (ICTA-UAB).
Social media:
Twitter: @sofia_acalero
Google scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=sNBSoBgAAAAJ&hl=en
Academia: https://uab.academia.edu/Sof%C3%ADaÁvila?from_navbar=true
Research Gate: https://www.researchgate.net
Academic publications:
Hanaček K, Roy B, Avila S, Kallis G (2019). Ecological economics and degrowth: Proposing a future research agenda from the margins. Ecological Economics 169 (2020) 106-495. ISSN 0921-8009. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2019.106495.
Avila S. Environmental Justice and the expanding geography of wind power conflicts (2018). Sustainability Science. 13 (3): 599-616. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-018-0547-4
Avila S. Contesting energy transitions: wind power and environmental conflicts in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec (2017). Journal of Political Ecology. 24: 993-1012. https://doi.org/10.2458/v24i1.20979
Temper L; Avila S; Del Bene D; Gobby J; Kosoy N; Lebillon P; Martinez-Alier J; Perkins P; Roy, B; Scheidel A; Walter, M (2020). Movements shaping climate futures: A systematic mapping of protests against fossil fuel and low-carbon energy projects. Environmental Research Letters. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/abc197
Scheidel A, Del Bene D, Liu J, Navas G, Mingorría S, Demaria F, Avila S, Roy B, Irmak Ertör I, Temper L, Martínez-Alier J (2020) Environmental conflicts and defenders: A global overview. Global Environmental Change. 63 (2020): 102-104. ISSN 0959-3780. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2020.102104.
Latin American Societies of Ecological Economics. The role of Ecological Economics in Latin American Public Policy (2017). Ecological Economics. 138: 238-241. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2017.03.041
Dissemination and media:
Avila S. Hacia una ecología política de las energías renovables. (2020) América Latina en Movimiento – Número 550 “Energía y Crisis Civilizatoria”. Editado por Ana Esther Ceceña. Octubre 2020, año 44, 2°época.
Avila S. Transición energética y justicia socio-ambiental. Aproximaciones desde el Sur global (2019). En: Tornel, C (coord.). Alternativas para limitar el calentamiento global en 1.5°C. Más allá de la economía verde. Fundación Heinrich Böll – México y El Caribe.
Avila S, Rao S (2018) Frente al crecimiento verde: visiones de lo común desde el Colectivo Timbaktu. Ecología Política. 55.
Avila, S (2018) Transición energética: ¿cambio tecnológico o transformación sistémica? Blog Última Llamada en El Diario.es
Avila, S (2016). La ecología política llegó para quedarse. Entrevista a Víctor Toledo. Ecología Política. 50:92-99.
Avila, S (2016). Degrowth in the Mexican Art Biennial: opportunities and paradoxes. International Degrowth Website.
Avila, S (2015). Entrevista a Enrique Leff. Ecología Política. 49:119-126.