Kirsten Francescone
Assistant Professor, Human Rights & Global Justice
Director, Trent in Bolivia Program
B.A. (Windsor), M.A., Ph.D. (Carleton)
Welcome to my page!
I have a PhD in Anthropology and Political Economy from Carleton University. I have over 10 years of academic and professional experience critically analyzing the nexus between natural resource development (specifically mining, but also agriculture) and human rights abuses in Latin America. I am an engaged anthropologist and work hard to make sure my academic teaching and research is oriented around post-capitalist and just ecological futures.
Prior to arriving at Trent in 2023, I was the Latin America Program Coordinator and a co-manager at MiningWatch Canada, a Canadian NGO that works to support mining-affected communities and social movements in Canada and abroad. There, the bulk of my work was dedicated to international human rights advocacy and Canada’s international obligations as a home state for corporate investment abroad.
Broadly, my research program combines critical development studies with human rights and focuses on the impacts of extractivism on Indigenous peoples, women and the working class, as well as their struggles for social and economic justice. I have in-country research experience in 7 countries in Latin America, with my substantial ethnographic fieldwork concentrated primarily in Bolivia, Ecuador and Guatemala.
My SSHRC-funded doctoral research and dissertation Mining Collapse: Life and Labour on the Cerro Rico de Potosi followed small-scale miners and city residents in Potosi, Bolivia, whose livelihoods suffered from the implementation of an open-pit mining operation. Drawing from Marxist, Feminist Political Economy, and Political Ecology, an important part of my dissertation documents the marked rise in exploitation and its fundamentally gendered nature. I also analyse the cultural materiality of mine labour and its changes with changes in the productive metabolism of capitalism.
My current research project, which is a collaboration with anthropologist Teresa Velasquez from CSUSB, seeks to understand why it is that we see women and Indigenous peoples on the frontlines of resistance to extractivism and what work they are doing to propose radical alternatives to extractivism in their communities. Entitled: “Seeds in our hands: Women’s Agroecological Schools in Southern Ecuador as Resistance to Extractivism,” we analyse how women’s Indigenous agro-ecological schools in rural southern Ecuador came to represent the frontline resistance movement to large-scale industrial mining. We ask what impact the mining companies’ activities have had on the gendered relationships within the movement, and what radical alternatives to mining the schools seek to pose for Indigenous and rural peoples.
Courses taught:
HURI 1001 “Human Rights Foundations”
GDST 1001 “Human Inequality in a Global Perspective”
HURI/GDST 3121 “Human Rights Law and Institutions”
IDST 4150 “Climate Crisis and Radical Hope” (Seminar)
IDST 3121 “Human Rights Theory and Practice” (Seminar/Lecture)
IDST 1001 “Human Inequality in a Global Perspective” (Lecture)
IDST 3121 “Human Rights Theory and Practice” (Seminar/Lecture)
IDST 4230 “Global Social Movements” (Seminar)
IDST 4801 “Research Practicum”, (Reading Course)
IDST 4260 “Global Governance and Social Justice” (Seminar)
IDST 4150 “Post Carbon Futures, Radical Hope” (Seminar)
IDST 1001 “Human Inequality in a Global Perspective” (Lecture)
IDST 4550 “Perspectives on Ethnicity” (Seminar)
Publications include:
Selected Publications
Francescone, Kirsten and Lisa Rankin. (accepted for publication), “Waiting for a response in light of deadly attacks? Assessing Canada’s international obligations to human rights defenders from the perspective of international advocacy.” Journal of Human Rights Practice,
Francescone, Kirsten. 2021. “Situating “el trato humano”: the role of Cuban medicine for political discussions of value in Potosi, Bolivia.” Dialectical Anthropology, 45 (1): 81-97.
Francescone, Kirsten. 2019. “Tracing indium production to the mines of the Cerro Rico de Potosí”, Economic Anthropology, 6(1) :110-122.
Francescone, Kirsten and Vladimir Diaz Cuellar. 2016. “Canadian mining interests in Bolivia (1985-2015): trajectories of flops, success and violence”, Latin American Policy, 7(2). (With Vladimir Diaz)
Francescone, Kirsten. 2015. “Cooperatives and the politics of abandonment in Bolivia”, Extractive Industries and Society, 2(4): 746-755.
Book Chapters
[accepted, publication spring 2025] Francescone, Kirsten and Teresa Velasquez. “The seeds in our hands: sovereignty as resistance to mining extractivism with women at the helm.” In: The End of Extraction as We Know it? (eds. Amy Janzwood and Chelsea Fairbank). Athabasca University Press.
[accepted, publication spring 2025] Paola Maldonado with Kirsten Francescone. “Women Warriors: Conversing with Indigenous land defenders. Water defense among the Mapuche-Tehuelche in Patagonia, Argentina”, in The End of Extraction as We Know it? (eds. Amy Janzwood and Chelsea Fairbank). Athabasca University Press
[accepted, publication spring 2025] Josefina Tunki with Kirsten Francescone. “Women Warriors: Conversing with Indigenous land defenders. The Struggle for Life against Mining Extractivism in the Ecuadorian Amazon”, in The End of Extraction as We Know it? (eds. Amy Janzwood and Chelsea Fairbank). Athabasca University Press
Selected Media
Francescone, Kirsten and Irene Suvilliaga. 2024. ”Direct action confronts Canada-Israel arms trade”, Canadian Dimension, March 7. https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/direct-action-confronts-can…
[quoted in] Grant, Tavia. 2023. “As Canada vies for UN Human Rights Council seat, some Indigenous leaders from the Amazon raise red flags”, The Globe and Mail, December 30.
Francescone, Kirsten. 2023. “State-sanctioned violence in Peru and the role of Canadian mining companies”, Canadian Dimension, March 16. https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/state-sanctioned-violence-i…
[Op. Ed.] Diaz-Cuellar, Vladimir and Kirsten Francescone. 2023. “The burning case for climate crisis post-secondary education in Canada”, The National Observer, January 9, 2023. https://www.nationalobserver.com/2023/01/09/opinion/burning-case-climat…
[quoted in] Friedman, Gabriel. 2022. “Barrick facing new allegations of contamination near Veladero mine in Argentina”, Financial Post, June 13.
[Op. Ed] 2021. “El daño en el cerro está hecho”, Diario Página Siete (Bolivia), December 13.
[quoted in]Macleod, Andrew. 2020 “Canadian Mining Giants Criticized for Pandemic Risks”, The Tyee, June 8.
[quoted in] Friedman, Gabriel. 2020 “Mining industry accused of spreading COVID-19 in remote communities by new report”. Financial Post, June 2.
[quoted in] Jones, Alexandra Mae. 2020. “New report details spread of COVID-19 through global mining industry”, CTV News, June 2