Mareike Winchell

Dr. Mareike Winchell is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). Her research focuses on the intersections of race, property, and environmental politics in Bolivia, with a particular emphasis on Indigenous communities. She holds a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, and previously taught at the University of Chicago. Her work explores how ethical paradigms of obligation to place and history interact with Indigenous dispossession and environmental land capture. She has been funded by institutions such as the Wenner Gren Foundation and the Josephine de Karman Fellowship Trust.

Winchell’s first book, After Servitude: Elusive Property and the Ethics of Kinship in Bolivia (2022), examines the enduring legacy of colonial labor systems and received an Honorable Mention from the SLACA Book Prize. Current projects include studies on climate politics, racialization in Bolivia, and legal histories of Indigenous land claims. Her research integrates ethnographic fieldwork with Indigenous Quechua, Aymara, and Chiquitos communities, emphasizing collaborative and decolonial methodologies.

• Education: PhD in Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley.
• Funding: Grants from the Wenner Gren Foundation, Josephine de Karman Fellowship Trust, and others.
• Key Themes: Climate justice, racial property, Indigenous rights, and post-colonial theory.

Her writing appears in journals like Cultural Anthropology and Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute. She actively critiques extractivist frameworks and advocates for alternatives to conventional conservation models.