I (Itayosara Rojas Herrera) Rojas Herrera, MSc

Biography

Itayosara Rojas is currently a PhD Researcher at International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), Erasmus University Rotterdam. She is member of a European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grant awarded project "Commodity & Land Rushes and Regimes: Reshaping Five Spheres of Global Social Life (RRUSHES-5)" led by Professor Jun Borras. As part of this project, Itayosara examines How the contemporary global commodity/land rushes (re)shape the politics of climate change, labour, and, state-citizenship relations in the Colombian Amazon. 

Her research interests focus on socio-environmental conflicts at the commodities frontier, land-use transformations at the Colombian agricultural frontier and its links with the development of illegal economies such as coca leaf production and processing. Itayosara has worked closely with the peasant movement in Colombia, accompanying training and advocacy processes at different levels. Also, she has been engaged with the implementation of the peace agreement signed in 2016, participating in the application of the socio-economic census of the signatories of the peace deal. 

She obtained her BA degree in Sociology (in 2017) from Universidad Nacional de Colombia. She holds an MSc degree in Rural Development (in 2019), achieved cum laude from Ghent University. She was awarded the Top-Up Grant, Consortium Scholarship, by Ghent University.