Gisselle Vila Benites

About

Gisselle Vila Benites is a Cornell Atkinson Postdoctoral Fellow affiliated with the Department of Global Development at Cornell University. Her work draws approaches from human-environment geography, development sociology, and participatory and qualitative methods. 

Her research focuses on community engagement with natural resource policies in ecologically sensitive areas in Latin America, covering policy arenas such as artisanal and small-scale mining formalization, mineral traceability, and water governance. For her postdoctoral project, she collaborates with Indigenous communities in the Peruvian Southern Amazon and local partner Instituto del Bien Común to design an environmental monitoring framework to assess the recovery potential of abandoned mining ponds. Her work aims to strengthen Indigenous governance over post-mining environmental remediation in the Amazon and enhance Indigenous food security.

Gisselle is also a Research Fellow at the Advanced Studies on Inequalities and Sustainable Development Program (Freie Universitat Berlin and Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú), the Center for Mining and Sustainability Research (Universidad del Pacífico, Peru), and member of the International Coalition on Drug Policy Reform and Environmental Justice.

Selected publications

• Vila Benites, G. (2023). Natures of concern: the criminalization of artisanal and small-scale mining in Colombia and Peru. The Extractive Industries and Society, 13 (101105). Published first: 2022. doi.org/10.1016/j.exis.2022.101105 
• Villanueva Ubillús & Vila Benites, G. (2023). Performing traceability. Unpacking the artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) trade circuit in Peru. Journal of Rural Studies, 102 (2023), 103088. doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2023.103088 
• Vila Benites, G. & Villanueva, A. (2022). The pendulum movement: unstable political settlements for artisanal and small-scale mining in Peru. Environmental Science and Policy, 136 (October 2022), 78-90. doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2022.05.008
• Vila Benites, G. & Bebbington, A. (2020). Political Settlements and the Governance of COVID-19: Mining, Risk & Territorial Control in Peru. Journal of Latin American Geography, 19(3), 215-223. muse.jhu.edu/article/760941
• Vila, G. (2017). Institutional bricolage and the creation of an irrigation association: the experience of a native community. Anthropologica, 35 (38), 41-68 (in Spanish) doi.org/10.18800/anthropologica.201701.002