Staff profile

Please see also my personal webpage penelopeanthias.com.

My research examines struggles around indigeneity, territory and the politics of resource extraction in Latin America. This work is grounded in a decade and a half of engaged ethnographic research in Bolivia’s Chaco region.

My work is theoretically heterodox and interdisciplinary, drawing inspiration from anti-colonial, Marxist and Foucaultian traditions to offer an empirically-grounded account of how colonial relations are reproduced and contested at resource frontiers, and in struggles over land and property. I have contributed to debates in political ecology, postcolonial geographies, legal geography, anthropology of development, and critical agrarian studies, among others.

At the heart of my approach is a commitment to centring the voices of Indigenous peoples and other racialised rural populations, not only as sources of empirical knowledge but as producers of geographical theory. This has led me to methodological experimentation, combining long-term ethnography with participatory methods, counter-mapping and, most recently, documentary film-making.

My first book, Limits to Decolonization, examines the dynamics and legacies of Bolivia’s Native Community Lands (TCOs) in the gas-rich Chaco region. The book offers a critical ethnographic reflection on the possibilities and limits of maps and law as instruments of decolonisation, as well as providing a novel perspective on the Bolivian process of change that centres Indigenous struggles for territory. I argue that the limits to decolonization in a context of deepening extractivism shaped new visions of Indigenous autonomy and hydrocarbon citizenship. The book was awarded the 2019 APSA Award for Best Book in Race, Ethnicity and Comparative Politics and featured in this 2019 Human Geography book review forum. A Spanish translation of the book (Plural Editores, 2022) is available here. Media coverage of recent book launch events in Bolivia and recordings of presentations can be found on this page.

I expanded my analytic of hydrocarbon citizenship through an institutional ethnography of a new Autonomous Regional Government in Gran Chaco Province, which reveals how plurinationalism and extractivism are articulated in contemporary processes of state-formation in Bolivia. This formed part of the ERC-funded project Rule and Rupture (2016-2019) based at the University of Copenhagen. 

My recent research (since 2019) has focused on the ongoing conflict over the development of three new natural gas fields in the Tariquia National Reserve of Flora and Fauna. I am currently completing a book manuscript that examines the spatial politics of this extraction-conservation frontier (relating to law, cartography, infrastructure, social institutions, knowledge, affect, and indigeneity) and how Indigenous and campesino communities resist extractive futures through countertopographic practices. This work was supported by a British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship (Untapped Reserves: Mapping Extraction and Resistance in Bolivia's Protected Areas) from 2024-2025. From 2019-2023, I was a co-Investigator on the research project "LEAKS: Extractive enclaves and unintended flows in Latin America" (Independent Research Fund of Denmark), based at the University of Copenhagen.

I have directed and produced two documentary films with communities adjacent to new gas projects in the Tariquía Reserve. Don't Touch Tariquia: The Resistance of Chiquiacá (2022) documents rural women's resistance to extraction in Chiquiacá Canton, where a 5-month blockade prevented the entry of oil companies in 2019. Urukurenda: In Search of the Land Without Evil (ĩvĩ Maraëï) (2025) focuses on the Guaraní community of Urukurenda's struggle for land access and legal recognition following a history of debt peonage and in the context of two new gas projects in the South of the Reserve. Both films are available open access on my YouTube channel. In 2023, I gained a Diploma in Creative Documentary Film-making at the Escuela Internacional de Cine y Television in Cuba, where I made a film about struggles for housing among descendents of workers in Latin America's largest textile factory (now closed). 

Before joining Durham in 2018, I held research fellowships at the University of Copenhagen and the University of California, Berkeley. I completed my PhD in Geography at the University of Cambridge in 2014.

I welcome expressions of interest from prospective PhD students, particularly those with research interests in (post)colonial geographies and/or land and resource politics.

Publications

During ongoing work on the Durham University website, the most up-to-date list of my publications can be found here.

PhD students (completed)

Tim May

Pietra Cepero Rua Perez

Authored book

• Límites a la descolonización: Territorios indígenas y política de hidrocarburos en el Chaco boliviano
  
  Anthias, P. (2022). Límites a la descolonización: Territorios indígenas y política de hidrocarburos en el Chaco boliviano. Plural Editores (La Paz).
• Limits to Decolonization: Indigeneity, Territory, and Hydrocarbon Politics in the Bolivian Chaco
  
  Anthias, P. (2018). Limits to Decolonization: Indigeneity, Territory, and Hydrocarbon Politics in the Bolivian Chaco. Cornell University Press.

Chapter in book

• Plurinational Juristocracy and Rights from Below at Bolivia’s Gas Frontier
  
  Anthias, P. (2025). Plurinational Juristocracy and Rights from Below at Bolivia’s Gas Frontier. In M. Goodale & O. Zenker (Eds.), Reckoning with Law in Excess: Mobilization, Confrontation, Refusal (pp. 186-211). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009499552.010
• Mapping the subaltern
  
  Anthias, P. (2023). Mapping the subaltern. In A. J. Kent & D. Specht (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Geospatial Technologies and Society. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780367855765-11
• Territorializing Resource Conflicts in “Post-Neoliberal” Bolivia: Hydrocarbon Development and Indigenous Land Titling in TCO Itika Guasu
  
  Anthias, P. (2012). Territorializing Resource Conflicts in “Post-Neoliberal” Bolivia: Hydrocarbon Development and Indigenous Land Titling in TCO Itika Guasu. In H. Haarstad (Ed.), New Political Spaces in Latin American Natural Resource Governance (pp. 129-153). Palgrave MacMillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137073723_7
• Regulación ambiental de los hidrocarburos en el Campo Margarita, Tarija
  
  Anthias, P. (2012). Regulación ambiental de los hidrocarburos en el Campo Margarita, Tarija. In P. Peralta & P. Hollenstein (Eds.), Jamás Tan Cerca Arremetió lo Lejos: Inversiones Extraterritoriales, Crisis Ambiental, y Acción Colectiva en América Latina (pp. 51-88). Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar.

Edited book

• Neoextractivism and Territorial Disputes in Latin America: Social-ecological Conflict and Resistance on the Front Lines
  
  Anthias, P., & López Flores, P. C. (Eds.). (2023). Neoextractivism and Territorial Disputes in Latin America: Social-ecological Conflict and Resistance on the Front Lines. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003267461

Journal Article

• Cuts, Flows, and Leaks: Enclaving Practices and Countertopographies at Bolivia's Hydrocarbon-Conservation Frontier / Cortes, flujos y fugas: prácticas de enclavamiento y contratopografías en la frontera hidrocarburosconservación de Bolivia
  
  Anthias, P. (2024). Cuts, Flows, and Leaks: Enclaving Practices and Countertopographies at Bolivia’s Hydrocarbon-Conservation Frontier / Cortes, flujos y fugas: prácticas de enclavamiento y contratopografías en la frontera hidrocarburosconservación de Bolivia. Journal of Latin American Geography, 23(3), 138-166. https://doi.org/10.1353/lag.2024.a948099
• Leaks: The Politics of Awkward Circulations in Latin America's Geographies of Energy Production
  
  Anthias, P., Cariola, M., Krøijer, S., & Rasmussen, M. B. (2024). Leaks: The Politics of Awkward Circulations in Latin America’s Geographies of Energy Production. Journal of Latin American Geography, 23(3), 8-57. https://doi.org/10.1353/lag.2024.a948095
• Indigenous Natures and the Anthropocene: Racial Capitalism, Violent Materialities, and the Colonial Politics of Representation
  
  Anthias, P., & Asher, K. (2024). Indigenous Natures and the Anthropocene: Racial Capitalism, Violent Materialities, and the Colonial Politics of Representation. Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1111/anti.13078
• Countertopographies and the futures of geographical thought
  
  Anthias, P. (2023). Countertopographies and the futures of geographical thought. Dialogues in Human Geography, 14(2). https://doi.org/10.1177/20438206231171202
• The Pluri-Extractivist State: Regional Autonomy and the Limits of Indigenous Participation in Gran Chaco Province
  
  Anthias, P. (2022). The Pluri-Extractivist State: Regional Autonomy and the Limits of Indigenous Participation in Gran Chaco Province. Journal of Latin American Studies, 54(1), 125-154. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0022216x21000997
• The making of ethnic territories: Governmentality and counter-conducts
  
  Anthias, P., & Hoffmann, K. (2021). The making of ethnic territories: Governmentality and counter-conducts. Geoforum, 119, 218-226. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2020.06.027
• Rethinking territory and property in indigenous land claims
  
  Anthias, P. (2021). Rethinking territory and property in indigenous land claims. Geoforum, 119, 268-278. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2019.09.008
• Book Review: Limits to Decolonization: Indigeneity, Territory, and Hydrocarbon Politics in the Bolivian Chaco
  
  Correia, J. E., McEwan, C., Bryan, J., & Anthias, P. (2019). Book Review: Limits to Decolonization: Indigeneity, Territory, and Hydrocarbon Politics in the Bolivian Chaco. Human Geography., 12(3), 57-58. https://doi.org/10.1177/194277861901200301
• Ambivalent cartographies: exploring the legacies of indigenous land titling through participatory mapping
  
  Anthias, P. (2019). Ambivalent cartographies: exploring the legacies of indigenous land titling through participatory mapping. Critique of Anthropology, 39(2), 222-242. https://doi.org/10.1177/0308275x19842920
• Indigenous Peoples and the New Extraction: From Territorial Rights to Hydrocarbon Citizenship in the Bolivian Chaco
  
  Anthias, P. (2018). Indigenous Peoples and the New Extraction: From Territorial Rights to Hydrocarbon Citizenship in the Bolivian Chaco. Latin American Perspectives, 45(5), 136-153. https://doi.org/10.1177/0094582x16678804
• Ch’ixi landscapes: Indigeneity and capitalism in the Bolivian Chaco
  
  Anthias, P. (2017). Ch’ixi landscapes: Indigeneity and capitalism in the Bolivian Chaco. Geoforum, 82, 268-275. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2016.09.013
• The ethno-environmental fix and its limits: Indigenous land titling and the production of not-quite-neoliberal natures in Bolivia
  
  Anthias, P., & Radcliffe, S. A. (2015). The ethno-environmental fix and its limits: Indigenous land titling and the production of not-quite-neoliberal natures in Bolivia. Geoforum, 64. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2013.06.007

Other (Digital/Visual Media)

• Urukurenda: In Search of the Land Without Evil (Ĩvĩ Maraëï)
  
  Anthias, P. (2025, July 8). Urukurenda: In Search of the Land Without Evil (Ĩvĩ Maraëï). In Youtube [Documentary film].
• La casa nueva (documentary directed, produced and filmed by Penelope Anthias, 2023) https://vimeo.com/799120385
  
  Anthias, P. (2023). La casa nueva (documentary directed, produced and filmed by Penelope Anthias, 2023) https://vimeo.com/799120385 [Documentary film].
• Don't Touch Tariquía: The Resistance of Chiquiacá
  
  Anthias, P. (2022, December 4). Don’t Touch Tariquía: The Resistance of Chiquiacá. In Youtube [Documentary film].

Other (Print)

• La mirada oblicua de Penelope
  
  Escobar, A., & Anthias, P. (in press). La mirada oblicua de Penelope. El Pais.
• Límites a la descolonización
  
  Rocha, N., & Anthias, P. (2023). Límites a la descolonización. La Razon.
• Indigenous autonomy in the age of extraction
  
  Anthias, P. (2016). Indigenous autonomy in the age of extraction. North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA).