
Research Summary
Dr. Lucía Isabel Stavig is an Assistant Professor of Global Health Governance in the Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies, within the Department of International Studies at Indiana University Bloomington. A Peruvian American scholar, Lucía has had the honor of learning with Indigenous communities across Turtle Island and Abya Yala, including Tzotzil and Tzeltal Maya peoples in Chiapas, Mexico; the Rama people in Nicaragua; the Ñhäñhú (Otomí) in Hidalgo, Mexico; the Kainai (Blackfoot Confederacy) in southern Alberta, and Runa (Quechua) peoples of the Cusco region. Lucía’s research explores how Indigenous peoples’ struggles for health and wellbeing are also political defenses of their lands and more-than-human relations. Specifically, her work in reproductive and Indigenous justice follows the efforts of First peoples—from southern Canada to southern Peru—to heal from colonial reproductive violences, including forced sterilization and contraception, obstetric violence, land loss, and ecosystem degradation to create Indigenous futures for generations to come.
Educational Background
- Ph.D., Medical Anthropology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2022
- M.A., Cultural Anthropology, University of Lethbridge, 2017
- M.S., Justice and Social Inquiry, Arizona State University, 2013
- B.A., Sociology and Latin American Studies, New College of Florida, 2010
Regions of Interest
- Andean region, with focus on Peru
- Turtle Island and Abya Yala (Indigenous Americas)
Research Topics
- Reproductive and obstetric violence
- Healing in more-than-human worlds
- Relationality and relational ethics and governance
- Indigenous social movements
- Cultural resurgence
- Culturally based ecosystem restoration
Representative Publications
- Stavig, Lucía Isabel. Forthcoming. The Cosmopolitics of Health: Women’s Communal Healing as Care and Defenses of More-than-Human Worlds in the Andes.Medical Anthropology: Cross-Cultural Studies in Health and Illness.
- Stavig, Lucía Isabel. 2024. “Mosoq Pakari Sumac Kawsay (A New Dawn for Good Living): Women Healing Body and Community in the Andes.” In ANDINXS: Decoloniality, Gender, and Contemporary Social Transformation in the Andes, edited by Rebecca Irons and Phoebe Martin. London: UCL Press.
- Stavig, Lucía Isabel. 2024. “Why Do This Work?: A History of Solidarity through Roots and Rhizomes.” In Sacred Bundles Unborn, 2nd ed., edited by Morningstar Mercredi. Altona, MB: Friesen Press.
- Stavig, Lucía Isabel. 2022. “Unwittingly Agreed: Fujimori, Neoliberal Governmentality and the Inclusive Exclusion of Indigenous Women.” Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies 17 (1): Special issue on The Persistence of Race in Peru: Intersectionality, Power, and Coloniality.
- Stavig, Lucía Isabel. 2021. “Tupananchiskama/Until Life Brings Us Together Again: Research Ethics and Bodily Vulnerability in the Time of COVID-19.” Anthropology and Humanism. https://doi.org/10.1111/anhu.12348.
- Stavig, Lucía Isabel. 2015. “‘I’ll Give You a Dollar if You Give Me Your Papers’: Active Citizenship and Immigrant Women’s Right to Work.” Signs 41 (1): 155–67. https://doi.org/10.1086/681775.
