MC (Carlota) Silva Houart MSc

I hold a Bachelor's degree in International Relations and a Master's degree in IR - Peace, Security and Development Studies from the University of Coimbra, Portugal. My Master's thesis focused on Rights of Nature and the transformation of modern political communities. Simultaneously to my Master's studies I worked as a junior researcher at the Centre for Social Studies of the University of Coimbra, as part of an ERC-funded research project on media and gender issues. In January 2022 I started my PhD research as part of the ERC-funded project "RIVERHOOD - Living Rivers and New Water Justice Movements", at Wageningen University. 

My PhD project focuses on water justice, multispecies justice and Rights of Nature as applied to rivers through a critical political ecology lens. Over the years I have been involved in volunteering and activism for animal rights, human rights, and environmental issues with local NGOs and with Extinction Rebellion on local, national, and international scales. I am passionate about rethinking human-society relations and the intersections between social and ecological/multispecies justice. Since 2021 I have also been involved with the Global Alliance for Rights of Nature (GARN).