Maria Estrada Fuentes

Maria Estrada Fuentes is a Lecturer in Latin American Performance Cultures at the Department of Drama, Theatre and Dance at Royal Holloway, University of London. She holds a PhD in Theatre Studies from the University of Warwick (2017), an MA from the Universities of Warwick (UK) and Tampere (Finland), and a BA from Universidad de Los Andes (Colombia). Her research focuses on arts-based conflict transformation, gender dynamics in transitional contexts, and the role of performance in post-conflict societies.

Before joining Royal Holloway in 2019, she was a Guest Lecturer at the University of Amsterdam (2018) and a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Warwick (2017–2020). She co-led the international research project Towards a Moral Grammar of Transitional Justice (2018–2020), a collaboration between UK and Colombian institutions. In 2019, she received the NWO Veni grant for postdoctoral research, though the offer was declined.

Her work intersects performance studies, gender studies, and legal frameworks, emphasizing embodied practices like dance and theatre in fostering social reintegration. She has contributed to projects such as La Pocha Nostra, a transdisciplinary arts collective, and explores themes like domestic abuse in post-conflict settings and the politics of performance in transitional justice.

Her research outputs include peer-reviewed articles in journals like Performance Research and Theatre Research International, as well as chapters examining ex-combatant reintegration and gendered citizenship. She frequently presents at international conferences, including talks on performative reintegration and intimate choreographies in domestic spaces.