Iokine Rodriguez Fernandez

Iokiñe Rodríguez is a Venezuelan sociologist, with an M.Phil. in Environment and Development from the University of Cambridge, England, a Ph.D. in Development Studies from the University of Sussex, England and a post-doctorate from the Centre of Social Studies of Science at the Venezuela Institute of Scientific Research (IVIC). She specializes on local environmental knowledge and conflict transformation in Latin America using participatory action-research. She has worked in Venezuela, Guyana, Ecuador, Chile, Bolivia and Colombia building local and institutional capacity to transform environmental conflicts. Her work on environmental conflict transformation focuses on issues of local history, local knowledge, power, environmental justice, equity and intercultural dialogue. She is co-founder of Grupo Confluencias, a consortium of Latin American conflict resolution practitioners, researchers and institutions actively engaged for more than 10 years developing processes of environmental conflict transformation, and who have been working together since 2005 in the development of a platform for deliberation, joint research, and training in this topic. Iokiñe is currently a Senior Lecturer in Environment and Development at DEV-UEA where she forms part of the Global Environmental Justice Group.

Training and experience: sociology, development studies, environmental conflict management/transformation, transdisciplinary and intercultural approaches for sustainable development and environmental governance, Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) with emphasis on indigenous knowledge of fire management in forest-savanna mosaics. Institutional support: capacity building expertise on participatory research and conflict management/transformation approaches for environmental governance with a variety of actors (government agencies, NGO representatives, indigenous people, grass-roots organizations and private companies).  Facilitation: ample experience facilitating dialogue and joint research/reflection over environmental conflicts in a variety of settings, ranging from academic research groups, workshops with natural resource managers and local government as well as participatory research projects with indigenous and local communities.  Moderator and facilitator in a variety of national and international meetings and workshops. Trained as facilitator for Participatory Video making as a tool for research and dialogue. Project design and evaluation:  Design and evaluation of national and international programs of natural resources conservation and environmental conflict and collaboration.  Innovation: experience developing a regional specific approach for environmental conflict research and transformation in Latin America with attention to power asymmetries, justice, interculturality, human rights and equity issues.

Global Environmental Justice Group, DEV-UEA

Conservation, Markets and Justice Project, DEV-UEA

Grupo Confluencias, Latin America

Impact of climate change and human occupations on savanna-forest mosaics: a transdisciplinary approach Project, IVIC, Venezuela

Environmental Conflict Transformation, Ingenous environmental knowledge, Asymmetries of Knowledge, Environmental Justice, Participatory research, Interculturality, Protected areas, Latin America