Dr Marieke Riethof

This research project examines Brazilian foreign policy through the lens of non-traditional foreign policy issues such as environmental and climate change policy, human rights, and democracy. The first paper for this project was published in the 2016 volume Provincialising Nature: Multidisciplinary Approaches to the Politics of the Environment in Latin America, edited by Michela Coletta and Malayna Raftopoulos (London: ILAS, 2016). Another strand of this research project focuses on the human rights dimensions of climate change and renewable energy in Brazil, in particular on hydro-electric dams. My article "The International Human Rights Discourse as a Strategic Focus in Socio-Environmental Conflicts: The Case of Hydro-Electric Dams in Brazil" appeared in the International Journal of Human Rights and a second article - "Promoting Renewable Energy or Environmental Problems? Environmental Politics and Sustainability in Sino-Brazilian Relations" - appeared in the Journal of China and International Relations.

In May 2011, I appeared as an expert witness at the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee inquiry into UK-Brazil relations. The full report and transcripts can be found on the House of Commons website. A short interview I gave about UK-Brazil relations can be found on World Politics Review.

With an initial focus on Chile and the UK, my project examines the Chile Solidarity Campaign’s strategies to address the political situation and human rights violations in Chile under Pinochet. The project also focuses memory and memorialisation of exile and solidarity as well as on Chilean exiles, their migration trajectories and their role in the solidarity movement. This project will eventually roll out to other Latin American (particularly Brazil, Argentina and Central America) and European countries. The first event related to this project was the Solidarity in the 21st Century collaborative workshop co-organised with colleagues from Manchester and Lancaster in May 2014. I organized a panel on Chile solidarity and gave a presentation on strategies of the Chile solidarity movement with a particular focus on the labour movement.

The aim of this project is to review international evidence on community-led approaches to poverty reduction to inform and influence anti-poverty policies in the UK

Funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, in collaboration with NatCen Social Research