Victoria Reyes-García

Victoria Reyes-García

Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

Social & Behavioural Sciences

Victoria Reyes-García (PhD Anthropology, 2001, U. of Florida) is ICREA Research Professor at the Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals (ICTA), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Her research focuses on local ecological knowledge systems, including their benefits, drivers of change, and potential contributions to conservation and development. From 1999 to 2004 she lived among Tsimane' hunter-gatherers in the Amazon, where she has long-term research. Since 2006 she coordinates the Laboratory for the Analysis of Socio-Ecological Systems in a Global World (LASEG), which catalyses research on the dynamic relations people-environments. She has about 200 peer-reviewed articles and three edited  books. Her research to study Indigenous and local knowledge is funded by the European Research Council. 


Research interests

My research encompasses the interdisciplinary study of dynamic relations among peoples, biota, and environments. I use a multidisciplinary perspective (working with ecologists, economists, psychologists, agronomists, archaeologists, and computer scientists) and empirical data to analyse 1) the effects of global change on rural societies, and 2) social responses to environmental issues. My research draws on the insights from the natural and behavioural sciences at multiple levels- from the views of villagers in developing nations to those of policy-makers in industrial nations. My current areas of research include 1) local indicators of climate change, 2) public participation in the documentation of local knowledge, 3) the adaptive nature of local environmental knowledge, 4) indigenous peoples and cultural change, and 5) local participation in biodiversity conservation.

Selected publications

- Fernandez-Llamazares A, Garteizgogeascoa M, Basu N, Brondizio E, Cabeza M, Martinez-Alier J, McElwee P & Reyes-Garcia V 2020, 'A State-of-the-Art Review of Indigenous Peoples and Environmental Pollution', Integrated Environmental Assessment And Management, 16, 3, 324 - 341.

- Garteizgogeascoa M, Garcia-del-Amo D & Reyes-Garcia V 2020, 'Using proverbs to study local perceptions of climate change: a case study in Sierra Nevada (Spain)', Regional Environmental Change, 20, 2, UNSP 59.

- Garcia-del-Amo D, Mortyn PG & Reyes-Garcia V 2020, 'Including indigenous and local knowledge in climate research: an assessment of the opinion of Spanish climate change researchers', Climatic Change, 160 (1) 67 - 88. 

- Reyes-Garcia V, Diaz-Reviriego I, Duda R, Fernandez-Llamazares A & Gallois S 2020, 'Hunting Otherwise Women's Hunting in Two Contemporary Forager-Horticulturalist Societies', Human Nature 31(3):203-221.

- Díaz S et al. 2020, 'A sustainable future requires holistic actions towards ambitious biodiversity goals'. Science 370:6515.

- Koster J et al. 2020. 'The life history of human foraging: Cross-cultural and individual variation'. Science Advances 6(26): eaax9070.

- Reyes-García V 2020,' Mothering in the field: Participant observation and cultural transmission'. In B. Hewlett, The secret life of anthropologists. Chapter 9: 182-203. Springer.

- Reyes-Garcia V, Fernandez-Llarnazares A, Bauchet J & Godoy R 2020, 'Variety of indigenous peoples' opinions of large infrastructure projects: The TIPNIS road in the Bolivian Amazon', World Development, 127, 104751.


Selected research activities

Participant, IPCC-IPBES co-sponsored workshop

Member, Earth Commission Working Group on Biosphere interactions

Academic coordinator, Postgrau en Dinamització Local Agroecològica, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona

Guarantor, ICTA-UAB "Maria de Maeztu Unit of Excellence"