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Dr Isadora Cruxen

Isadora

Senior Lecturer in Business Politics and Development

Email: i.cruxen@qmul.ac.uk
Website: https://isadoracruxen.com/
Twitter: @@icruxen.bsky.social

Profile

Roles:

  • Member of the Department of Business and Society
  • Programme Director for the MSc in International Business and Politics and the MSc in Development and International Business.

Biography:

Dr Isadora Cruxên studies the political economy of sustainable development, with a focus on Latin America and Brazil. Her work is broadly interested in the relationship between contemporary capitalist development and democratic politics. Her interdisciplinary research engages debates on state-market relations, financialisation and business power, privatisation, and forms of political mobilisation such as data activism. She is also interested in participatory forms of research and knowledge production.

She currently explores these issues though projects on the financing and governance of infrastructures like water and sanitation, on impact investing, and on activism against gender-based violence. As co-lead of the project Data Against Feminicide (https://datoscontrafeminicidio.net/en/home/), she contributed to the participatory development of AI-based tools that support activist monitoring of feminicide across different contexts. This work was awarded an Honorary Mention from the European Commission’s 2025 S+T+ARTS Prize (https://starts-prize.aec.at/en/data-against-feminicide/), which recognises innovation at the intersection of society, technology, and the arts.

Dr Cruxên holds a PhD in Political Economy, Development and Planning (2022) from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a Master in City Planning (2016) from MIT, and a bachelor’s degree in Political Science (2011) from the University of Brasília, Brazil.

Teaching

Dr Cruxên is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy/Advance HE and currently convenes the following two courses:

  • BUSM090 - World Economy and Development
  • BUSM266 - Financing Sustainability
  • BUSM260 - Conceptual Models for Global Business and Sustainability
  • BUSM261 - Methodologies for Global Business and Sustainability

Pedagogic publications

Lawrence Susskind, Dayna Cunningham, and Isadora A. Cruxên 2018, “Teaching Participatory Action Research: The Search for Pedagogical Insights.”  In (Participatory) Action Research: Principles, Approaches and Applications. Edited by Calder, J. and Foletta J. New York: Nova Science Publishers, 126–127.

Research

Research Interests:

Isadora’s research centres on the political economy of sustainable development and natural resource governance in the global South, with a regional focus on Latin America. Her recent work engages debates on:

  • Sustainable development
  • Financialisation 
  • Business politics and power
  • Sustainable finance
  • Urban infrastructures
  • Water politics and governance
  • Data politics
  • Gender politics and feminist activism 
  • Participatory methods of research
  • Latin America

Centre and Group Membership:

Member of the Centre on Labour, Sustainability and Global Production (CLaSP) and co-editor of the CLaSP Blog

Member of the Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean (CRoLAC)

Member of Public Management and Regulation Group

Member of Borderlines: Action Research Group in Creative and Cultural Economies

Publications 

Journal articles

Catherine D’Ignazio, Isadora Cruxên, Angeles Martinez Cuba, Helena Suárez Val, Amelia Dogan, and Natasha Ansari (2024). "Geographies of missing data: Spatializing counterdata production against feminicide". (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/02637758241275961) Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 43(1), 29-50.

Isadora A Cruxên (2024). "Securing financial returns in politically uncertain worlds: Finance and urban water politics in Brazil". (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/23996544241236093) Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space, 42(8), 1430-1447.

Isadora A. Cruxên (2022). “The Limits of Insulation: The Long-Term Political Dynamics of Public-Private Service Delivery”. (https://www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/10.3828/idpr.2021.12) International Development Planning Review, 44(2), 317–343.

Catherine D’Ignazio, Isadora Cruxên, Helena Suárez Val, Angeles Martinez Cuba, Mariel García-Montes, Silvana Fumega, Harini Suresh, and Wonyoung So (2022). "Feminicide and counterdata production: Activist efforts to monitor and challenge gender-related violence". (https://www.cell.com/patterns/fulltext/S2666-3899\(22\)00127-1?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS2666389922001271%3Fshowall%3Dtrue) Patterns 3, no. 7: 100530.

Suresh, Harini, Rajiv Movva, Amelia Lee Dogan, Rahul Bhargava, Isadora Cruxên, Ángeles Martinez Cuba, Guilia Taurino, Wonyoung So, and Catherine D'Ignazio (2022). “Towards Intersectional Feminist and Participatory ML: A Case Study in Supporting Feminicide Counterdata Collection".(https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3531146.3533132) In Proceedings of the 2022 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (FaccT), pp. 667-678.

Gabriella Carolini, Daniel Gallagher, and Isadora A. Cruxên (2018). “The Promise of Proximity: The Politics of Knowledge and Learning in South-South Cooperation between Water Operators”. (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2399654418776972) Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space, 37:7, 1157-1175.

Joana Alencar, Isadora A. Cruxên, Igor Fonseca, Roberto Pires, and Uriella Ribeiro (2013). “Participação Social e Desigualdades nos Conselhos Nacionais” (https://www.scielo.br/j/soc/a/3dcrBD3pPQLhgyzbZVShqnf/?format=html&lang=pt\) (Public Participation and Inequality in National Councils). Sociologias, 15:32, 112–146.

Book chapters

Isadora A Cruxên and Ben R Schneider (2025). “Capitalism in Latin America: Varieties, Models, and Dependencies". (https://www.e-elgar.com/shop/gbp/handbook-of-comparative-political-economy-9781035327775.html?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=International%20Politics%20-%20August&utm_content=International%20Politics%20-%20August+CID_6c46604fd91a73e2691eed2ef3b9b72d&utm_source=Campaign%20Monitor%20EEP&utm_term=Handbook%20of%20Comparative%20Political%20Economy) In Handbook of Comparative Political Economy, edited by M. Regini, Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd.

Gabriella Carolini and Isadora A. Cruxên (2020).  “Infrastructure: The Harmonization of an Asset Class and Implications for Local Governance.” In The Routledge Handbook of Financial Geography, edited by Knox-Hayes, J. and Wójcik, D. Routledge, 232–260.

Lawrence Susskind, Dayna Cunningham, and Isadora A. Cruxên (2018). “Teaching Participatory Action Research: The Search for Pedagogical Insights.”  In (Participatory) Action Research: Principles, Approaches and Applications, edited by Calder, J. and Foletta J. New York: Nova Science Publishers, 126–127.

Joana Alencar, Isadora A. Cruxên, and Uriella Ribeiro (2015). “Participação Social no Planejamento Federal: um olhar a partir das Conferências Nacionais de Políticas Públicas.” In Planejamento Brasil século XXI: inovação institucional e refundação administrativa: elementos para o pensar e o agir, edited by José Celso Cardoso Jr. Brasília: IPEA, 259–294.

Clóvis Souza, Isadora A. Cruxên, Paula Lima, Joana Alencar, and Uriella Ribeiro (2013). “Conferências típicas e atípicas: um esforço de caracterização do fenômeno politico.” In Conferências Nacionais: atores, dinâmicas participativas e efetividade, edited by Leonardo Avritzer and Clóvis Souza. Brasília: IPEA, 25–52.
Gabriella Carolini and Isadora A. Cruxên (2020).  “Infrastructure: The Harmonization of an Asset Class and Implications for Local Governance.” In The Routledge Handbook of Financial Geography, edited by Knox-Hayes, J. and Wójcik, D. Routledge, 232–260.

Lawrence Susskind, Dayna Cunningham, and Isadora A. Cruxên (2018). “Teaching Participatory Action Research: The Search for Pedagogical Insights.”  In (Participatory) Action Research: Principles, Approaches and Applications, edited by Calder, J. and Foletta J. New York: Nova Science Publishers, 126–127.

Joana Alencar, Isadora A. Cruxên, and Uriella Ribeiro (2015). “Participação Social no Planejamento Federal: um olhar a partir das Conferências Nacionais de Políticas Públicas.” In Planejamento Brasil século XXI: inovação institucional e refundação administrativa: elementos para o pensar e o agir, edited by José Celso Cardoso Jr. Brasília: IPEA, 259–294.

Clóvis Souza, Isadora A. Cruxên, Paula Lima, Joana Alencar, and Uriella Ribeiro (2013). “Conferências típicas e atípicas: um esforço de caracterização do fenômeno politico.” In Conferências Nacionais: atores, dinâmicas participativas e efetividade, edited by Leonardo Avritzer and Clóvis Souza. Brasília: IPEA, 25–52.

Edited journal volume

Andrea Beck and Isadora A. Cruxên, “New uses for old rivers: Rediscovering urban waterways.” Projections, 14. MIT Press.

Research awards (selected)

Martin Family Society of Fellows for Sustainability, MIT (2019)

GPEIG Best Student Paper on International Planning Award, Global Planning Educators Interest Group, Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning Conference (2018)

Supervision

Co-supervision

  • Caterina Rossi, PhD Student, School of Business and Management (financialization of development, blue finance, ocean conservation).
  • Gregory Tsardanidis, PhD Student, School of Business and Management (platform work, cooperative alternatives, digital activism,  participatory research and design).

Public Engagement

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