Caroline Schuster

Caroline Schuster is an Associate Professor at the Australian National University (ANU), affiliated with the School of Archaeology and Anthropology and the Gender Institute. Her research bridges economic anthropology, gender studies, and climate finance, focusing on Paraguay’s informal economies and the global financial system.

• PhD in Cultural Anthropology, University of Chicago (2012)
• MA in Anthropology, University of Chicago
• BA in Development Studies, Stanford University

Her work explores financialization in Latin America, particularly microcredit, insurance, and disaster capitalism. She investigates how environmental damages are transformed into financial instruments and examines gendered dimensions of economic interdependencies in Paraguay’s Triple-Frontier region.

Recent publications highlight her expertise in disaster relief ethics, graphic ethnography, and climate risk finance. She has authored a book on Paraguay’s microfinance systems and co-created a graphic ethnography linking local climate adaptation to global reinsurance frameworks.

• Australian Research Council DECRA (2017-2020)
• Harvard Academy Fellow (2012-2014)