Participatory, Land-based, And Critical Environments (PLACE) Research Collective Kickoff Meeting

Group Leads 

Margot Jeanne Cohen is a Ph.D. student in Environmental Science, Policy, and Management (ESPM) in the division of Society and Environment at UC Berkeley. Cohen is a member of the Climate Futures Lab, the Disabled Ecologies Lab, and the Latin American SocioNatures Working Group. Her research brings together racial environmental geographies, feminist Science and Technology Studies (STS), and critical participatory methods to examine the political ecologies of climate change adaptation in the Andean highlands of Ecuador and in Western Massachusetts. Her dissertation project engages Participatory Action Research (PAR) as both a subject and methodology to address the coalitional politics of community organizing around the intersections of abolition, displacement, and land relations. Prior to starting her doctoral program, she worked in the nonprofit sector on issues of gender-based violence, reproductive justice, and climate justice.

Sydney Moss is a second-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management (ESPM). Grounded in organizing experiences in the U.S. and participatory action research with Indigenous communities in Ecuador, Colombia, and Peru, she hopes to leverage her position as an academic researcher in collaboration with Indigenous communities in the Andes-Amazon region to advance territorial self-determination in climate adaptation, water, and biodiversity interventions in the landscape. Working with the knowledge that these projects often further colonial land relations, her research draws on transformative educación popular, centers community and territorial plans for buen vivir, and generates support for existing community structures, such as existing coalitions, governance structures, small funds, and long-standing cultural practices of collaboration. As a Ph.D. student, Sydney explores Indigenous ecologies, ethnobotany, political ecology, critical restoration, climate and water justice, and decolonial geography. She is currently collaborating with partners in Latin America to co-define participatory research rooted in local cosmovisions that are generative, strengths-based, and ultimately supportive of community self-determination. She holds a master’s degree in Development Engineering: Community-Based Ecosystem Stewardship from UC Berkeley.