I am a post-doctoral researcher trained at the intersections of social anthropology, medical anthropology, science and technology studies, and public policy.

 After having worked for over ten years in mental health issues, democratic psychiatry, and systemic psychotherapy in Chile, Italy, Spain and Portugal, in 2008 I decided to pursue a Phd in Anthropology. My PhD thesis, finalized in October 2012, is a long-term ethnography that explores how multicultural health policies work ‘on the ground’, and transform the daily life and cosmologies of indigenous communities in Chile. I study dynamics in the relationship between state healthcare workers and rural populations in southern Chile, examining how material technologies mediate intercultural relations in practice.  I showed how the co-existence of multiple healing practices ‘on the ground’ entails frictions and clashes, offering therefore important challenges to multicultural health policies.

 Since October 2012, I work within ‘The Eating Body in Western Practice and Theory’ research team, led by Professor Annemarie Mol. I have explored the practical role of eating and drinking practices in the maintenance, construction and reconstruction of the social fabric in rural Chilean communities. As the head of the research line on ‘Practices of alterity-alterity of practices’, I have analyzed how material fluids interfere with and create relationships among people; how public policies affect relations of daily life and interfere with people’s ways of being; and how local communities organize their mundane eating and drinking practices in order to survive environmental material transformations in their environment. 

• 2012, Visiting professor at Leiden University. Indian American Studies, Deparment of Linguistic.
• 2010, Summer School on Interdependent Inequalities in Latin America, Brazil, November 1-5, 2010 DesiguALdades.net and Center for Metropolitan Studies    
• 2010, Irmgard Coninx Foundation 11th Roundtables on Transnationality Essay    competition "Cultural Pluralism: Linguistic freedoms". Berlin, Germany   
• 2006, Student grant for outstanding academic and clinical performance at the Center of Family Therapy, Milan, Italy

Conferences and presentations 

• "Invisible-invencible-ingobernable: Enfermedad y diferencia en el Sur de Chile”. Seminario Etnografías del Control, Diciembre 2014. Universidad de Chile.

• “Alternative visions: enacting alterities in Southern Chile”. Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) meeting. Buenos Aires, Argentina. August 2014

• “Para terminar con el juicio de los ventrílocuos clínicos: Bosquejos para una ontología clínica”. Intensive Course in Systemic Psychotherapy. Amherst, USA. July 2014

• “Alter-native visions: Healing, spiritual relations and difference in Southern Chile”. Talk given at the CRESC-TiK Workshop When Authorities Meet: Power, Expertise and Framing in an Uncertain World. London, UK. June 2014.

• “Alimentos para vivir muriendo: reflexiones clínicas sobre el morir como proceso transformativo”. Centro Estudos da Familia e Psicoterapia. Lisbon, Portugal. May 2014

• “Medical Anthropology beyond the multicultural nightmare’’, Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Oxford University. Medical Anthropology Research Seminar,  March 2014.  
• “Festines de sangre en el Sur del Chile’’, Seminario Internacional de Investigación sobre Antropología mapuche 2013, Diciembre 2013, Universidad de Chile 
• “Saborear a la pehuenche: fuerza e indigestión en el sur de Chile”. Conference ¿Qué sujeto, cuál conflicto? Subjetividad, Política y Relaciones Interculturales en América Latina y el mundo. Del 12 al 14 de diciembre, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago de Chile
• "(D)ecological eating: Food, Force and Circuits in Southern Chile". CRESC Conference, September 2013
• "Ontological disorders: Nightmares, psychotropics and evil spirits in Southern Chile". Seminario "Tecnologías en el límite: extensiones, ensamblajes y el otro"  December, 2011. Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, Programa de Antropologia  
• "Multiple mobility, personhood, and controversial psychotropics among the Pewenche people". Contested mobility: People, Commodities, and Policies across Latino America and the Caribbean. International Conference 13-14 October. Leiden University.           
• "Reflexiones sobre terrorismo fractal-relacional: Pasos hacia una erradicación ecológica cotidiana de prácticas absolutistas". Summer School on Interdependent Inequalities in Latin America. Brazil, November 1-5, 2010 
• "La función de los funcionarios en el Alto Bío Bío: Reflexiones sobre relaciones Estado/Pewenche". Conference about Multiculturalism in current Chile "Los Desafíos del Enfoque Multicultural en el Ámbito Socio – Comunitario". Universidad de Chile, Facultad de Ciencias Sociales, Fundación Tierra Esperanza. 14 September 2010 
• "Entre tramas igualitarias y burocracias policiales: El terreno político de la intervención terapeútica". Conference with Marcelo Pakman, Hospital Sótero del Río, Santiago de Chile. 13 September 2010
• "Reflections of linguistic freedom and on extra-linguistic freedom in Southern Chile" paper presented at the 11th Roundtables on Transnationality, Irmgard Coninx Foundation-WZB essay competition on Linguistic Freedoms, workshop Cultural Pluralism. Berlin, Germany. April 2010 
• Invited chair at the international seminar "Dialogues, politics and praxis: reflecting about the concept of Mental Health". Organized by Universidad de Chile, Universidad Mayor, Unversidad Adolfo Ibañez, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile,Universidad Central, Universidad Católica Silva Enriquez. Santiago, Chile, October 2009 
• "A city called Dopamine: claiming for a critical thought in mental health practices". Annual conference of the Center of Family Therapy, Milan, Italy. November 2006 
• "Panopticon 2.0: Discipline and (no) Thought in welfare daily life". Paper and video installation presented at the conference "Mental Health, citizenship and poverty in current global metropolis". Main session. Organized by WHO World Health Organization (WHO) Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse , and Casa della Caritá, Centro di Studi per la Sofferenza Urbana. Milan, Italy. October 2006 
• "Motherhood and social work with migrant women: What is better not to do". Organized by Casa della Caritá Foundation, Milán, Italy.  April 2006 
• "Therapeutic practices as political enaction: the contributions of Francisco Varela and GianFranco Cecchin, revisited". Paper presented at the Annual conference of the Center of Family Therapy, Milan, Italy. October 2005 
• "Migration, welfare, and the forbidden cultural difference: a case study". Paper presented at the Annual conference of the Center of Family Therapy, Milan, Italy October 2003. Co-author with Marta Isaia and AnnaLuisa Vicari. 
• "Theathre against stigma in marginalized Chilean rural childhood: integration for what?" Paper and video installation presented at the Servicio País training week. Based on a social intervention in rural Chile, Maule, considered as one of the best interventions within the area of Culture and Health. Picarquín, Chile. January 2000.

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