Carlota McAllister

Carlota McAllister is an Associate Professor at York University's Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change. She holds a PhD from Johns Hopkins University, alongside MA degrees from Johns Hopkins and the University of Arizona, and a BA (Honours) from the University of Toronto. Her research focuses on political and historical anthropology, particularly in Latin America, examining the intersections of religion, revolution, and political ecology. She has conducted fieldwork in Guatemala and Chile, analyzing topics such as Mayan revolutionary consciousness, dam conflicts in Patagonia, and the socio-political dimensions of water rights.

Her current project explores the dam conflict in Chilean Patagonia, investigating how local communities utilize historical narratives and property concepts to resist corporate and governmental projects. McAllister has been a Faculty Fellow at Harvard University's Charles Warren Center and has received grants from institutions like the Wenner-Gren Foundation and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. She supervises graduate students in Anthropology, Environmental Studies, and related fields.

Key research outputs include her monograph The Good Road: Conscience and Consciousness in a Post-Revolutionary Mayan Village in Guatemala and co-edited volumes such as War by Other Means: Aftermath in Postgenocide Guatemala. Her work frequently engages with themes of post-genocide legacies, theopolitical frameworks, and the materiality of social movements.

• Research Awards: 2019 Political Theology Network Essay Contest winner, 2016-17 Harvard Faculty Fellow
• Grants: Fulbright Institute, Wenner-Gren Foundation, Guggenheim Foundation