Here is a list of some of the work I have published
2022
Gamonales Who Make a City: Intimate Interactions in City Building.
Paper showing how agricultural and real estate practices are not just substitutes in the consolidation of informal settlements in urban peripheries. Patrons, or "gamonales," can capitalize on both as complementary activities that consolidate their role in city building. Published in the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research
Haiti:
A Migration Crisis?
Blogpost about the Center for Latin American and Latinx Studies conference on migration from Haiti. The post summarizes the main insights of the conference while problematizing the idea that attributes migration from Haiti to a country in permanent crisis, isolated from the rest of the world, condemned by its own nature.
2021
Building New Neighborhoods for Displaced People in Colombia's Small Cities: Lessons from Granada.
Working paper on the implementation of a program to provide free housing to internally displaced persons in Colombia. With a focus on a small city called Granada. I argue that the construction and provision of free housing encountered unique challenges in small cities, where residents and officials were more likely to know each other and where local governments often do not have the resources or infrastructure to effectively manage aid provisions. Published at the Harvard Joint Center for Housing working paper series.
2020
The WhatsApp Experience: The Pandemic and Ordinary Life in Granada, Colombia.
Article about ordinary life during the Covid-19 pandemic in Granada, a small city in Colombia. A WhatsApp group offers a window into common reactions, experiences, fears, and desires generated by the pandemic. Published at the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies newsletter, ReVista.
Implementing a Progressive Urban Agenda through Social Housing: The Mismatches of Scale.
Coauthored paper with Diane Davis draws on a case in Bogota, Colombia, to show how socially progressive initiatives for the level of the city can create burdens for low-income families when implemented at the level of housing projects. Published at Planning Theory & Practice journal.
2019
Colombia's Peace Experiment: Many ex-combatants are sticking to build communities.
Blogpost about spaces of collective and economic reincorporation of demobilized FARC guerrillas in Colombia, their imagination as transitional spaces in the 2016 Peace Accords, and their slow transformation into spaces of permanent residence, or towns. Published in the United States Institute of Peace's blog, The Olive Branch
Progressive Politics and Inclusive Social Housing: Enablers and Barriers to Transformative Change in Bogota.
Coauthored working paper with Diane Davis documents the challenges to Bogota Mayor Gustavo Petro’s ambitious housing plans, with a particular focus on the design and implementation processes that stymied his efforts to produce a more just, sustainably compact, and socially mixed Bogota. Published at the Harvard Joint Center for Housing working paper series.
La Hoja, Placing Displacement in Bogota
Article about challenges and benefits of relocating displaced households from the urban peripheries to middle income neighborhoods in Bogota's inner city through free housing projects. Published at the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies newsletter, ReVista.
2011
La ciudad que pasó por el río. La canalización del río San Francisco y la construcción de la Avenida Jiménez en Bogotá a principios del siglo XX.
The paper documents the canalization of river San Francisco and subsequent construction of the Avenida Jiménez de Quesada in Bogota, Colombia. Following the different stages of the canalization process, it shows its relations with the spatial structure of the city and the socioeconomic conditions surrounding different stretches of the river. The paper is published at Territorios journal.