El miedo en el medio del mundo: Gang Violence Takes Ecuador.

GDP - The Global Development Primer

Ecuador has tumbled into a state of fear and peril. In early January 2024 armed men stormed a popular evening television show in Guayaquil. It was a brazen visualization of growing gang violence across the country. Under state of emergency, Ecuador is now facing declared internal conflict. Why? In part due to the changing geography of narco-trafficking in the region, in part due to economic instability and increasing poverty across the country, and in part due to broader global economic trends. Maria Gabriela Palacio Ludeña joins us to bring some clarity to the crisis, and to explain why this is occurring and what we need to consider to bring Ecuador back from the this grip of fear.

Maria Gabriela Palacio Ludeña is an Assistant Professor in Development Studies at the Latin American Studies Programme - Institute for History. She contributes to the programmes BA International Studies and MA International Relations. She teaches courses on a variety of topics such as (global and regional) political economy, social policy, nation-building processes in Latin America, neoliberalism, informality and labour segregation, and social reproduction. Her courses engage in dialogue with various literature streams, namely political economy, anthropology of the state, and development studies. While her work primarily focuses on the Latin American region, she welcomes the opportunity to collaborate with students whose research focuses on other regions but deal with issues of social exclusion, inequality, poverty, labour economics, gender and queer methodologies and/or social policy.

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