Faculty Profiles

LaShandra Sullivan (Ph.D., University of Chicago 2013) researches race and environmental politics in Brazil. She conducts fieldwork in Rio de Janeiro, as well as in the center-west state of Mato Grosso do Sul. Sullivan’s research in Rio de Janeiro focuses on the intersections of Black activism, LGBTQ organizing, and black empowerment in the city, particularly as it regards historical transformations in land ownership and land occupation. In Mato Grosso do Sul, Sullivan conducted research in roadside squatter camps of indigenous land protesters and their confrontations with agribusiness plantation owners. Based on this research, her book manuscript analyzes the emergence of squatter protests with rural economic development—specifically deforestation, mass displacement of indigenous people, and the casualization of labor—in recent decades.