Dr Isadora Cruxen

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:

Isadora Cruxên studies the political economy of development with a focus on Latin America and Brazil. Her recent work explores the politics of market-making and private investment in water infrastructures and in impact investing projects with a socio-environmental focus. This work bridges scholarship in development studies, political science, urban planning, and geography and engages issues such as financialisation, public-private collaboration, regulation, and business politics. 

Another vein of her work examines the politics of knowledge production in relation to forms of social struggle and participatory methods of research and planning. As a research affiliate at the Data + Feminism Lab at MIT, she co-leads the collaborative action-research project called “Data Against Feminicide,” which aims to understand data activism about feminicide and gender-related violence and work with activists to co-design technological tools that support their work. Some of this research has been featured in Science. 

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

BUSM090 - World Economy and Development

BUSM217 - Sustainable Finance

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

Isadora A Cruxên 2024. "Securing financial returns in politically uncertain worlds: Finance and urban water politics in Brazil." Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space, 23996544241236093 (online first).

Isadora A. Cruxên 2022, “The Limits of Insulation: The Long-Term Political Dynamics of Public-Private Service Delivery.” 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." Patterns 3, no. 7 (2022): 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." In 2022 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency, 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.” 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” (Public Participation and Inequality in National Councils). Sociologias, 15:32, 112–146.

Book chapters

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)

Public Engagement

• Isadora A Cruxên 2023. “Elusive boundaries: The politics of public-private relations in Brazilian water provision,” Phenomenal World (Essay).
• Isadora A Cruxên, Alessandra Jungs de Almeida, and Catherine D’Ignazio 2023. Data activism against feminicide: co-designing digital tools to monitor gender-related violence across the Americas, Research Insights #2, School of Business and Management, Queen Mary University of London. Available at www.qmul.ac.uk/busman/research/research-insights (Report)
• Alessandra Jungs de Almeida, Catherine D’Ignazio, Cecília França, Isadora A Cruxên, Maria Eunice Xavier Kalil, Rose Marques, Silvana Mariano, Telia Negrão, and Thaís Pereira Siqueira 2023.  “Tecnologia e ativistas de dados contra o feminicídio,” Portal Catarinas (Essay co-authored with research collaborators).