Azucena Castro

Azucena Castro is an Assistant Professor at Rice University in the Department of Modern and Classical Literatures and Cultures. She holds affiliations with the Center for Latin American and Latinx Studies and the Center for Environmental Studies. Her work bridges Latin American cultural studies with socio-political ecologies, focusing on climate justice, multispecies resistance, and anti-extractivist critiques in artivist scenes across South America. She has collaborated internationally, including postdoctoral research at Stockholm University’s Stockholm Resilience Center and Stanford University’s Latin American Studies program.

Dr. Castro earned her PhD from Stockholm University, with prior postdoctoral training in human geography at the University of Buenos Aires. Her interdisciplinary research emphasizes transnational environmental humanities, particularly in contexts of chemical colonialism (pesticides) and decolonizing invasion ecologies. She is currently completing a book manuscript on decolonial invasion ecologies, supported by the Swedish Research Council, and developing a project on drought in Brazil through anti-colonial lenses.

Her research interests include 20th/21st-century Latin American literature and culture, multispecies storytelling, and critical sustainability frameworks. She co-edited volumes such as Futuros multiespecie (2023) and contributed to special journal issues like GeoSemantics (ASAP/J, 2023). Her teaching includes courses like Reclaiming the Future: Technology, Culture & Society in Latin America and Literature and the Environment in Latin America.

Her collaborative projects span energy geohumanities, climate sovereignty narratives, and transdisciplinary environmental justice. She has worked with institutions like the University of Zaragoza and the International Journal of Engineering, Social Justice and Peace. Current initiatives explore solarpunk aesthetics and just energy transitions in South America.