Research / Staff
l.mackenzie@ed.ac.uk
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Lisa Mackenzie has been working on the highly dynamic volcanic landscapes of Guatemala since 2018. Guatemala is exposed to high levels of geophysical and hydro-meteorological hazards including hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, landslides, tsunamis, droughts and volcanic eruptions. In recent years, Guatemala has been hit by several disasters including Hurricane Stan in 2005, tropical storm Agatha in 2010 and the eruption of Volcan Fuego in 2018.
Mackenzie is currently a co-investigator with Dr Teresa Armijos in the School of International Development at the University of East Anglia for the work package: ‘Collaborative and situational art practices to break barriers – The Living Landscape’ within the larger NERC funded project entitled ‘Ixchel: Building understanding of the physical, cultural and socio-economic drivers of risk for strengthening resilience in the Guatemalan cordillera’.
The Ixchel project is co-led by Professor Eliza Calder and Professor Julie Cupples, School of Geosciences at the University of Edinburgh.
The research team are currently engaged in wide ranging conversations with local people to better understand the complex socio-environmental relationships that they have with the landscapes that surround them. This fieldwork will carry into collaborative and situated arts practices that will be undertaken to foreground local knowledge and feature as a corrective force in changing views, attitudes and approaches to indigenous and other marginalised community’s rights in the region. Ultimately the research seeks new approaches in Disaster Risk Reduction.
Mackenzie’s research investigates landscape and livelihoods, threats associated with the landscape, evolving landscapes and the opportunities and constraints of land based climate change adaptations.
Within the bid, Mackenzie is currently developing methodologies to activate and represent the geographical scale where the past, present, physical and experiential opportunity of the landscape can hold meaning as a mediative force in and inbetween scientific research and everyday experiences of the landscape.
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Cycles, Volcan Fuego.
Lisa Mackenzie