Dr María Paula Escobar-Tello
Research Associate
Email: maria.escobar@kcl.ac.uk
Department of Geography
King's College London
K4L.04 Strand Campus
London
WC2R 2LS
Research Interests
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Cultural environmental politics
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Human-Animal Relations
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Public understanding of science
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Environmental urban conflicts
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History and Philosophy of Knowledge
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Political Theory
Biography
María Paula is a cultural geographer with a multidisciplinary background and a strong interest in visual narratives and in innovative research methodologies, particularly the use of video and photography, as well as other interactive strategies to relate research processes and outcomes.
2011 PhD in Geography, King’s College London, Title of Thesis: “Pestering Geography: Zoo-ontological politics in Trafalgar Square” (further details at www.mariapaulaescobar.co.uk)
2004 MA (Distinction) in Environment, Politics and Globalisation, King’s College London, Title of the Thesis: “The Serpent in the Garden: A Journey into Human-Animal Relationships”
1995: BA in Political Science and History, Universidad de los Andes – Bogotá, Colombia
Research
In October 2012 María Paula secured a competitive Fellowship to join the Social Science Group in DEFRA (Department Environment, Food and Regional Affairs) to review the social science evidence in animal health and welfare, identify gaps and produce a framework for further research and intervention options.
Earlier, María Paula worked as a Research Assitant for KULTURisk, an FP7 EU project seeking to contribute to the implementation of a culture of environmental risk prevention, with a special interest on water-related risks, particularly floods. She focused on how flood risk is framed and represented in the media.
Publications
On Paper and Video
Escobar, MP. and Demeritt, D., (2012) “Flooding and the framing of risk in British broadsheets, 1985-2010”, Public Understanding of Social Science. Published online before print DOI: http://pus.sagepub.com/content/early/2012/09/06/0963662512457613
Escobar, MP (2012) Book Review: Who Speaks for the Climate? Making Sense of Media Reporting on Climate Change (2011), by Maxwell Boykoff; Environment and Planning A 44:11, p. 2786-2786
Escobar, MP., “From ‘I have put seeds for you on the table’ and ‘Shoo! You are eating my food’ to ‘Yack! You are eating that??’: the complexities of feeding birds in Britain”.Presented at “Meet Animal Meat”, organised by the Centre for Gender Research, Uppsala University, Sweden, 21- 23 May 2009. (The presentation included a short experimental performance)
Escobar, MP., “Becoming a Trafalgar Square Pigeon: from modern fixed identities to cosmopolitan relational ontologies”. Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Association of Geographers, Boston, 15 – 19 April 2008
Escobar, MP., “Trafalgar Square: Relationality, Places and Agency”. Presented at the Annual Conference of the Royal Geographical Society with the Institute of British Geographers, London, 29 – 31 August 2007, within the session Relationality: concepts, politics, futures, where I was also a Co-convenor.
Escobar, MP., “Pigeons, public squares and the cosmopolitical imagination”. The presentation included an interactive video, available at www.mariapaulaescobar.co.uk. Presented at the Annual Conference of the Royal Geographical Society with the Institute of British Geographers , London, 29 – 31 August 2006