Lucía Isabel Stavig, PhD, MS, MA
Associate Scholar
- Postdoctoral Fellow, Center for Research on Race & Ethnicity in Society & Visiting Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Indiana University
- Peru
- Indigenous Health | Reproductive Justice | Women's health
Languages: English (Fluent), Spanish (Fluent), Quechua (Intermediate)
Bio statement
Dr. Lucía Isabel Stavig is a CRRES Postdoctoral Fellow and Visiting Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Indiana University. Prior to this appointment, she was a Penn-Mellon Just Futures Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania. She received her PhD in Cultural and Medical Anthropology from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2022), a Master’s in Anthropology from the University of Lethbridge, Canada (2017), a Master’s in Justice and Social Inquiry from Arizona State University (2013), and a Bachelor of Arts from New College of Florida (2010). She is Peruvian-American and has had the honor to learn with Las Abejas and the zapatistas in Chiapas, Mexico; the Rama people in Nicaragua; the Ñhäñhú (Otomí) in Hidalgo, Mexico; the Kainai (Blackfoot) in southern Alberta, and the Runa (Quechua) of the Cusco area. Lucía´s research explores how Indigenous peoples’ struggles for health are also political defenses of their lands and more-than-human relations. Her work in reproductive and Indigenous justice follows the efforts of First peoples from Canada to southern Peru to heal from colonial reproductive violences (including forced sterilization, forced contraception, obstetric violence, and genocide) to create Indigenous futures for generations to come.
Recent global health projects
I am currently involved in the rehabilitation of an Indigenous-women-run healing center in Anta, Cusco, Perú. The center serves women who were forcibly sterilized under the National Program for Reproductive Health and Family Planning (1996-2000) in Peru. The healing center helps women heal from illnesses related to their forced sterilization, such as mancharisqa or susto. While the symptoms are similar to PTSD, the PTSD diagnosis is not capacious enough to hold the spiritual aspect of this illness.
I am also a part of several global research teams focusing on the forced sterilization of Indigenous women. One project includes survivors from Peru, Canada, and South Africa. Another includes women from Peru, Canada, and Indonesia. Both projects seek to support the organization, activism, and health of forcibly sterilized women.
Selected publications
Forthcoming "Mosoq Pakari Sumac Kawsay (A New Dawn for Good Living): Women Healing Body and Community in the Andes." ANDINXS: Decoloniality, Gender, and Contemporary Social Transformation in the Andes (Rebecca Irons and Phoebe Martin, eds.): London: UCL Press
2021. “Una Mirada al libro”
Perú: Las Esterilizaciones forzadas, en la década del terror: Acompañando la batalla de las mujeres por la verdad, la justicia y las reparaciones (Alberto Chirif, ed)
Lima: International Working Group for Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA) y Estudio para la Defensa de los Derechos de la Mujer (DEMUS)
ISBN: 978-87-93961-36-4
2022c Unwittingly Agreed: Fujimori, Neoliberal Governmentality and the Inclusive Exclusion of Indigenous Women. Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies, 17(1): xx-xx, special issue on The Persistence of Race in Peru: Intersectionality, Power, and Coloniality. Published online 8/2021 https://doi.org/10.1080/17442222.2021.1935683
Una Mentira y Miles de Verdades (La Madre)
Experiencing Corona Virus in the Andes
Last Updated: 29 August 2024