Dr Ana Cristina Suzina

Dr Ana Cristina Suzina recently concluded a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship at the Institute for Media and Creative Industries at Loughborough University London, after serving one year as a Doctoral Prize Fellow, a very prestigious fellowship to which the university selects and supports highly skilled early career researchers to enhance their career development. Her current research deals with media initiatives in indigenous communities in Brazil and Ecuador, analysing political imagination and political voice. Her research interests include social change, power asymmetries, media appropriation, participation in democracy, civil society development, grassroots communication, particularly focused in Latin American societies.

Dr. Suzina is a prolific researcher, editor and writer, and lecturer on communications in several countries. She has published and coordinated publications in English, Spanish, Portuguese and French. She is co-editor of the Bulletin of Latin American Research (BLAR), published by the Society of Latin American Studies (SLAS). She has also volunteered with Brazilian and Latin American organizations to train young communicators motivated to promote causes, by organizing seminars, producing manuals, and planning campaigns. For around 15 years, Dr Suzina also worked as specialist in communication and social change with expertise in social organizations and corporate social responsibility, mainly in the fields of children’s rights and nature conservation.

Together with Professor Thomas Tufte, she has been leading a series of activities around the global legacy of the Brazilian educator Paulo Freire in communication, development and social change.

Dr Suzina graduated with a bachelor's in Journalism (UEPG, 1998) with compliments for the final essay discussing community newspapers.

She also holds two master's degrees with leading Brazilian universities, in Cultural History (UEPG, 2000) and Political Sociology (UFPR, 2006). She also has a master's degree in Political Science and PhD in Social and Political Sciences, both awarded by the Université Catholique de Louvain in 2012 and 2018.

Dr Suzina has received an International Award for Excellence in Journalism – National Level, from International Catholic Union of Press. Her dissertation was nominated by Professors Marc Lits (Belgium), Thomas Tufte (UK) and Cicilia Peruzzo (Brazil) for the Award for the Best Dissertation of the Activism, Communication and Social Justice Interest Group from the International Communication Association (2019).

Dr Suzina is currently working on research with indigenous and traditional communities in the Amazon region, in Brazil (Sao Pedro de Arapiuns) and Ecuador (Sarayaku). She is analysing the evolution from political imagination to political voice, recovering the history of two past struggles in which media platforms were used to increase the visibility and the power of community narratives.

Dr Suzina is a member of the following associations:

• Tierra Comun
• International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR)
• European Consortium for Political Research (EPCR)
• Asociación Latino Americana de Investigación en Comunicación (ALAIC)
• Núcleo de Estudos de Comunicação Comunitária e Mídia Local (COMUNI, Brazil)