Environment / Water / Commoning / Violence & Conflict / Democracy
Bio
Ainhoa Montoya is an anthropologist with an interest in the study of initiatives of environmental care for transboundary river basins that have regional or planetary socioecological relevance. Her work also explores citizen uses of law, post-conflict violence, and democracy-making practices. She currently works in borderlands of river basins in the Americas and the Iberian Peninsula. Much of her ongoing research addressing violence, democracy and populism centers on El Salvador. She is currently based at the Anthropology Department of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) as a Ramón y Cajal Senior Research Fellow.
© Maximilian Glas
My work
I have conducted projects and published on issues revolving around environmental care, commons, transboundary river basins, citizen lawmaking, violence, and democracy-making. In my work, I have engaged with artist researchers, NGOs and civil society organizations, human rights lawyers and policymakers to conduct collaborative research, develop new methodologies, and devise languages and modes of communication that reach out beyond academia.
PROJECTS
PUBLICATIONS
COLLABORATIONS
News
01/06/2026
Writing beyond academia: A practical guide
In 2025, the research team of the project Building a Transnational Community of Practice: Writing and Researcher Development in Latin America and the Caribbean collaborated on the production of a training guide with the Laboratorio de Antropología Abierta (Open Anthropology Lab, LAAB) on how to write for non-academic audiences about our research. The result […]
03/08/2025
The full Oxford Handbook of Climate Action is out now
The full online book is now available, complete with its cover, and will be out soon in print. The handbook has a great variety of chapters exploring, from various social science perspectives, what taking action to address climate change means and involves […]
28/07/2025
Research in the Duero/Douro River Basin
In April this year, we began work in the binational Duero/Douro River basin to learn about cross-border initiatives to protect the basin’s territory, designed by people who are directly involved in its care and reproduction. This process of walking the basin and getting to know it […]
Contact: ainhoa.montoya@cchs.csic.es
