Elena Palma, MA

Elena Palma, a PhD candidate at the Rachel Carson Center, is part of the research program “Learning Nature(s): A Cross-Cultural Ethnography of Children’s Relationship to the Nonhuman World.” In her project, she explores children’s embodied practices with water and their role in developing an emotional attachment and a sense of belonging to rivers. She holds an MA in cultural anthropology, ethnology, and anthropological linguistics at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. In her MA thesis, she focused on the social effects of hydraulic projects on the Pehuenche Indigenous people of central Chile and the local resistance as a part of a glocal movement in rivers’ defence. Before joining the research program, Elena worked in an environmental education project with the Biosphaera, a social cooperative, and in a kindergarten. Outside academia, Elena is an analogue photographer enthusiast and part of the Collettivo Femminista Scledense in Schio, Italy, where she engages in feminist educational projects in schools and peer education.

Dissertation Project

Learning Nature(s): A Cross-Cultural Ethnography of Children’s Relationship to the Nonhuman World