María Antonia Hidalgo Rubio

María Antonia Hidalgo Rubio is a Social Sciences Researcher at Pablo de Olavide University (UPO) in Seville, Spain, affiliated with the Department of Education and Social Psychology. She directs the Master's Program in Art Therapy and Applications for Dialogue and Social Integration and teaches in the Master's Program in Gender and Equality at UPO. Previously, she served as Director of the Culture Department at the Granada Provincial Council.

She earned her PhD from Pablo de Olavide University in 2019 with the dissertation Art Therapy and Refugee Population: A Look at the Life of Women in Sahrawi Refugee Camps through Their Drawings, supervised by Dr. Carmen Monreal-Gimeno and Dr. Belén Martínez-Ferrer.

Her research centers on art therapy as a tool for trauma recovery and social integration among marginalized populations, particularly Sahrawi refugee women. She investigates how artistic expression processes political violence, preserves cultural memory, and enables resistance in contexts of forced displacement. Her work bridges clinical art therapy with feminist and postcolonial frameworks to address systemic oppression and promote social dialogue.

Analysis of her publications (2011-2019) reveals consistent focus on Sahrawi refugee experiences, gender-based resistance, and art's role in community building. Key trends include therapeutic applications of drawing for trauma processing, visual culture as political resistance, and art-based interventions for social integration in postcolonial contexts. Her scholarship demonstrates increasing interdisciplinary engagement across psychology, anthropology, and gender studies.

As Director of the Master's in Art Therapy program, she oversees curriculum development and student training in therapeutic art applications. Her academic leadership extends to the Interdisciplinary Center for Feminist, Women's, and Gender Studies (CINEF) and the FAMINTER research group focused on Values, Family, Equality, and Intergenerational Relations.