Helen Gutierrez Farquhar

Email: h.gutierrezfarquhar@qmul.ac.uk

Project title:  

Mapping Latin London through Socionatural Placemaking

Project description:  

The Latin American community is one of the fastest growing immigrant populations in London (McIlwaine & Bunge, 2016), yet despite this, it remains largely “invisible” in the UK. In response, a growing body of scholarship emerged, exploring how placemaking is mobilized at the community level (Roman-Velazquez, 2022), as well as the role of social reproductive labor done by women (Turcatti, 2021); it is at the intersection of these two strands of research that this project situates itself. Thus, this research seeks to provide a more expansive understanding of the places that Latin American women occupy in London, bridging placemaking and social reproduction through a socionatural approach, to inquire how they access and experience nature as part of their everyday placemaking practices.

Methodologically, a socionatural approach applies a relational lens that opens space to ask how places and people are mutually co-constituted. Understanding the research process as relational and fluid, the methods proposed drew from different qualitative research traditions, including grounded, participatory arts-based, and feminist research. The data collection process has involved partnering with a local community-based organization to host embroidery workshops to discuss and visually represent the places in London where participants most connected with nature; doll-making workshops to explore the embodied experiences of organizing within the community and accessing nature in the city; group interviews-by-doing with a gardening group of Latin American pensioners; site observations of three community gardening initiatives; archival research; and individual interviews. These methods sought open a conversation about how Latin American women relate to nature in London, providing spaces for connection and reflection in ways that were most accessible to them.

Supervision 

1st Supervisor: Dr. Paula Serafini 
2nd Supervisor:  Dr. Holly Eva Ryan 

Biography 

I am a third-year PhD candidate at Queen Mary University of London in the School of Business and Management. I hold a BA in Environmental Health from the University of Costa Rica and an MSc in Environmental Justice from the University of Michigan. Prior to the PhD, I worked as a consultant for local governments and NGOs in Costa Rica, focusing on climate change adaptation and climate impacts.

Centre and Group Membership

Centre on Labour, Sustainability, and Global Production

Teaching and Membership

2024-2025 TA for POL-106 and POL317

Area of Expertise

Environmental change, qualitative methods, participatory research