Victoria Maguire-Rajpaul

Victoria Maguire-Rajpaul serves as a Research Fellow at the Global Sustainability Institute within Anglia Ruskin University's Faculty of Science and Engineering, a position held since 2022 following prior research appointments at the University of Warwick, Cambridge, and other institutions across Europe.

Her academic credentials include:

• PhD in Geography & the Environment, University of Oxford
• MPhil in Environmental Change & Management (Distinction), University of Oxford
• MA in Economic Sociology (First Class), Trinity College Dublin
• Diploma in Higher Education Economics, University of Northumbria

As a political ecologist, Maguire-Rajpaul investigates how transnational sustainability governance impacts smallholder farmers cultivating cocoa, coffee, oil palm, and cattle in tropical landscapes. Her research critically assesses whether zero-deforestation commitments achieve environmental effectiveness while ensuring social equity, inclusivity, and legitimacy. This work intersects with climate justice frameworks, decolonial theory, and degrowth principles to address interconnected crises of biodiversity loss, food insecurity, and environmental degradation.

She actively supervises graduate research and teaches across ARU's Sustainability, International Relations, and Conservation programs. Maguire-Rajpaul contributes to the Research and Innovation Committee while engaging with networks advancing decolonial and feminist approaches to environmental governance. Her multilingual fieldwork capabilities (fluent French; competent Spanish, Swedish, Italian; basic Portuguese, Afrikaans) support research across diverse cultural contexts.