Panagiota Kotsila

Panagiota Kotsila is a social and environmental scientist, interested in the interrelationship between bio-physical and socio-political spheres and particularly on the effects this interrelationship has on the health and well-being of human populations. Her research has a strong focus on the management and use of water resources, from the points of view of environmental history, political ecology, social anthropology and critical development. She is a post-doctoral fellow at ICTA-UAB (Institute for Environmental Science and Technology - Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona), in the European Network for Political Ecology (ENTITLE).

A biologist by training, Panagiota holds a PhD in Development Studies from the Faculty of Philosophy (University of Bonn) and a Masters degree in Environmental Studies from the JEMES program (Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Universidade de Aveiro, Aalborg Universitet, Technische Universität Hamburg-Harburg). Her doctoral research took place under the umbrella of the WISDOM project, at the Center for Development Research (ZEF) and it investigates the socio-political and cultural determinants of diarrheal disease in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta. Taking an inter-disciplinary approach, her dissertation explains the complexities of existing environmental health injustices, involving questions of health risk definition, local knowledge, participatory education and development practice. This work has been published as a monograph by Lit Vertlag.

Building on her doctoral work, her future research will examine the spread of vector-borne diseases in Greece (such as West Nile Virus and malaria), through a critical institutional and anthropological analysis, seeking to answer whether and how such risks are exacerbated by the current socio-economic crisis that the country is experiencing. Her study will particularly look at the discursive practices and decision-making processes that take place around the nexus of water, environment and health, in spheres that involve formal policy, local politics, community action and the socio-cultural attributions of disease.