Universitat Rovira i Virgili

Faculty Professors of the Department

Elisa Alegre Agís (Lecturer)

PhD in Medical Anthropology, Bachelor's Degree in Social and Cultural Anthropology from the Universitat Rovira i Virgili and Social Worker from the University of Valencia (2009). She has been a Juan de la Cierva postdoctoral fellow in the Lis Research Group - Estudis socials i de gènere sobre la corporalitat, la subjectivitat i el patiment evitable of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and at the Instituto Universitario de Investigación de Estudios de las Mujeres y del Género of Granada University. She has participated and continues to participate in various national and international projects, such as Gestión Colaborativa de la Medicación, or CUSAM: Mujeres cuidadoras de personas con trastorno mental grave: retos para un cuidado democrático y colectivo. Since 2018 she has been a teacher at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili, the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya and the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. She is a member of the Medical Anthropology Research Center, the URV Chair of Social Inclusion, the editorial board of the Medical Anthropology Collection (Publicacions URV), the board of the Institut Català d'Antropologia, and is co-coordinator of the Red de Antropología Médica y de la Salud of the Asociación de Antropología del Estado Español.

Research interests: mental health, madness, history of psychiatry, family, care, and mental health from a feminist and gender point of view.

Teaching: Bachelor's Degree in Social Work; Master's Degree in Innovation in Social and Educational Intervention; Specialization Diploma in Public Management of Local Social Services; Specialization Diploma in Collective Mental Health; Doctoral Program in Social Work; Doctoral Program in Anthropology and Communication.

elisa.alegre(ELIMINAR)@urv.cat       

Top

Agustí Andreu Tomàs (Associate Professor)

PhD on Urban Anthropology Urbana (URV, 2011). He has developed his professional duties at the 'Delta de l'Ebre' Natural Park. Director of the Environmental School of 'Delta de l'Ebre' (1985-1992). He has participated as a researcher in different R&D projects funded by the National Research Plan (Spanish Government), as well as in other competitive research projects focused on migration studies and ethnologic heritage. Coordinator of several graduate programs at the URV on cultural management and heritage. Visiting lecturer at Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina (Brazil, 2011-2012). Part-time professor at the Open University of Catalonia (UOC) since 2002.

Research interests: Anthropology of fishing; cultural and natural heritage; ethnologic museums; heritage and local development.

Teaching: Undergraduate Programme on Anthropology and Human Evolution; Master’s in Urban Anthropology, Migrations and Social Intervention.

agusti.andreu@urv.cat 

Top

Claudia María Anleu Hernández (Associate Professor)

PhD in Migrations and Social Mediation from the Universitat Rovira i Virgili (2015). Master's degree in Social Psychology and Political Violence from the Universidad San Carlos de Guatemala (2004) and a Master's degree in Migration and Social Mediation (URV, 2010); she holds a degree in Social Work from Rafael Landívar University (Guatemala, 2000).  Her teaching experience began in Guatemala in the 1990s. She is a member of the Research Group GAS 2021 SGR 00107, of the Chair of Social Inclusion, of the Medical Anthropology Research Center (MARC) and of the board of the Faculty of Legal Sciences of the URV. She has specialised in the phenomenon of resilience and its approach. She is the author of several books and book chapters. She has also numerous articles in indexed journals addressing resilience in migration contexts, political violence, feminicides, mixed couples and teaching in social work. She has participated in several R&D projects on different topics (mixed couples, care, femicide, drug use and ageing). She has been a reviewer for high-impact journals and is at present co-director of the Social Work journal RTS. Recently, she has been the Principal Investigator of the project AGORAge. Ageing in caring community (pilot of the H2020-COESO project). At present she is the Principal Investigator of the R&D project (2023-2026), ResiYouth, 'Immigrant-origin youth resilient strategies against social exclusion' to identify and analyze the resilience developed by immigrant-origin youth living in Catalonia to face situations and processes of social exclusion.

Research interests: Resilience; migration; youth; social work; social intervention; ageing; violence/feminicide. 

Teaching: Undergraduate Programme in Social Work; Master’s in Innovation in the Social and Educational Intervention; Interuniversity Master's in Social Work in Health Care; Doctorate programme in Social Work.

claudiamaria.anleu@urv.cat     

Top

Yolanda Bodoque Puerta  (Associate Professor - Serra Húnter Programme)

PhD in Social and Cultural Anthropology (URV, 1996) and Serra Húnter fellow at the Department since 2002. She has done pre-doctoral research stays at the Univ. of Nanterre (France), and post-doctoral ones (ERASMUS STA program) at the ISCTE of Lisbon (Portugal) and at the Univ. from Friborg (Switzerland). She has also been a guest professor and researcher at the Univ. from Campinas (Brazil). She was a professor at the Univ. Católica de San Antonio de Murcia (1997-2001) and at the Univ. Open of Catalonia (2005-2007). She is currently coordinating the URV Degree in Anthropology and Human Evolution (URV-UOC). Member of the ITA: Association of Anthropology and the Interuniversity Institute of Women and Gender Studies. She has participated as a researcher in several research projects, related to gender, migrations and the transformations of rural societies. In this field, his ethnographic work on the phenomenon of women's caravans in rural Spain stands out. Since 2015 she has been part of the Research Group on Men in Care within which she has participated in three projects (Recercaixa, 2015-2018; R+D+I, 2018-2021; and Fondo Supera Covid-19, 2020-2021). She is currently co-Principal Investigator of a coordinated R+D+I project (2021-2024) on the impact of COVID-19 on the social organization of care and the transformation of the social care model. She has also participated as a researcher in a pilot of the European COESO project (H2020) on aging in caring communities. She is the author or co-author of several book chapters and scientific articles.

Research interests: Migrations; male singleness; stratified reproduction; reagrarianization initiatives; care work; migrations and care; the mosaics of care resources in homes and their transformations; care in the community.

Teaching: BA in Anthropology and Human Evolution; BA in Social Work; Master in Urban Anthropology, Migrations and Social Intervention; Doctorate in Anthropology and Communication; Doctorate in Gender Studies.

yolanda.bodoque@urv.cat       

Top

Martín Correa-Urquiza Vidal (Lecturer - Serra Húnter Programme)

PhD in Medical Anthropology from the URV (2010), Master's in Social and Cultural Anthropology from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (2005); BA in Communication Sciences from Buenos Aires University (1997), Master's in Public Opinion from FLACSO (Argentina) (1998). He is a co-director and the coordinator of the Master's in Medical Anthropology and Global Health, and a part-time lecturer at the Open University of Catalonia (UOC). He has research expertise in several fields, including health, mental health, and communitarian communication. He is a founder and general coordinator of the Radio Nikosia social and cultural association. He is also a member of the Research Group in Social Anthropology (URV) and the coordinator of the Research Group in the Anthropology of Madness (Catalan Institute of Anthropology).

Research interests: Mental health; health and adolescence; communication.

Teaching: Master in Medical Anthropology and Global Health; Master in Youth and Society; Graduate Programme in Collective Mental Health.

martin.correaurquizav@urv.cat     

Top

Maria Ramon Cubells Bartolomé (Associate professor)

PhD. in Philosophy (UB, 1993). Professor at the URV since 1992. Visiting professor at the UB and at the University of Granada. Her research activity focuses on the thought of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and has specialized in the philosophy of G.W. Leibniz.  She participates in the project "Leibniz in Spanish". Member of the research group EIDOS, Hermeneutics, Platonism and Modernity (2014 SGR 506) and of the German Classical Philosophy Study Group, GEFCA. Editor of volume 14, Philosophical and Scientific Works. Correspondence I of G.W. Leibniz (Comares, 2007). Currently, she is vice-president of the Spanish Leibniz Society for Baroque and Enlightenment Studies (SEL), member of the Societat Catalana de Filosofia (IEC) and of the Red Iberoamericana Leibniz.

Research interests: History of modern philosophy: Descartes, Leibniz and Kant; modern metaphysics, theory of knowledge; Theory of art and aesthetics: history of modern aesthetics, problems of contemporary aesthetics; The birth of aesthetics: Alexander Baumgarten and the Leibnizian universe.

Teaching: Degree in History; Degree in Art History; Degree in English; Degree in Catalan Language and Literature; Degree in Hispanic Language and Literature and Doctoral Programme on Anthropology and Communication.

mariaramon.cubells@urv.cat

Top

Blanca Deusdad Ayala (Associate professor)

PhD in Sociology (UB, 2002). Degree in Geography and History, specializing in cultural anthropology (UB, 1989). She received a Postdoctoral Fulbright Fellowship (2004-2005) for Boston University and for Harvard University (2006 and 2008). Professor at the URV since 2009. She has been the coordinator of the EU project Horizon 2020: SoCaTel. A multi-stakeholder co-creation platform for better access to long-term care services (2017-21), in which the SoCaTel platform for carrying out digital co-creation of long-term care services has been developed from a humanistic centric approach. Two twinning projects from DigitalHelathEurope, 2020 in Italy (Veneto) and In-4-AHA (EIP on AHA), 2022 in the Czech Republic (Ústí nad Labem) on the adoption of the SoCaTel platform have also been developed. She has also participated in other European funded projects on long-term care: the COST Action social services, welfare states and places (2011-15) and COST Action Ageism a multi-national, interdisciplinary perspective (2014-18). Guest Editor of the Special Issue of the Journal of Social Service Research (2016) about ageing and the economic crisis. She was the coordinator of the Master Degree on Medical Anthropology and Global Health (2016-2018). She is also collaborator at the Finnish Centre of Excellence AgeCare, University of Jyväskylä, where she is involving in digitalisation of care work. She is also an associate member of Boston University's Institute for the Advancement of the Social Sciences and member of the UNESCO Housing Chair at the URV.

Research interests: Ageing, ethics and the use of emergent technologies and AI in ageing and social services; Integrated care, community-based care and co-creation; Loneliness and ageism; Ageing-in-place and new models of housing for older adults; Intercultural education and citizenship education.

Teaching: Undergraduate Programme in Social Work; Master in Medical Anthropology and Global Health; Master in Health and Aging (Faculty of Medicine, URV); Master in Innovation in Social and Educational Intervention; Doctoral Programme on Social Work and Doctoral Programme on Anthropology and Communication.

blanca.deusdad@urv.cat    Personal web

Top

Maria Victòria Forns Fernández (Associate professor)

PhD in Anthropology and Communication (excellent cum laude and Extraordinary Doctorate Award, URV, 2020), Degree in Social and Cultural Anthropology (URV, 2003) and Diploma in Social Work (UB, 1990). DEA in Urban Studies and Social Movements (URV, 2006). Postgraduate Diploma in University Teaching in the European Higher Education Area (URV, 2006), Postgraduate Diploma in Social Mediation (Generalitat de Catalunya, 2003); Postgraduate Diploma in Management and Local Administration (URV, 2010) and Master in Advanced Studies in Administration and Public Law (URV, 2018). Director of the Social Action Department of Caritas Diocesana (Tarragona, 2000-2010). Councilor at Tarragona City Council (2007-2015) and Member of the Parliament of Catalonia (2010-2015). Member of the Parliamentary Advisory Council on Science and Technology (CAPCIT, 2005-2007). She has carried out research at the Pontificia Universidade Católica do Paraná and the Universidade Federal do Paraná (Brazil, 2016-2017). She is responsible for several knowledge outreach projects related to her lines of research. Since May 2022 she has been editor of the Revista de Treball Social (RTS) of the Official Association of Social Work of Catalonia. Coordinator of the Bachelor's Degree in Social Work (URV, 2017-). Co-director of the Chair of Social Inclusion (URV) from 2021. Director of the Postgraduate Diploma in the Legal Regime of Care for People in Social Matters (URV, 2021-2022 and 2022-2023). Director of the Diploma of Specialisation in Public Management of Local Social Services since 2024.

Research interests: Models and organisation of the public social services system; social rights; social services and the welfare state; intervention in contexts of the social periphery; male violence and feminicide; teaching innovation in the area of professional practices in Social Work.

Teaching: Degree in Social Work; Master in Innovation in Social and Educational Intervention; Postgraduate Diploma in local management, Management Function (UAB); Postgraduate Diploma in Supervision in the Area of Personal Care (URV); Postgraduate Diploma in Public Management of Local Security (URV); Diploma of Specialisation in Public Management of Local Social Services (URV); Doctoral Programme on Social Work (URV).

mariavictoria.forns@urv.cat

Top

Cristina García Moreno (Associate Professor)

Ph.D. in Urban Anthropology from the URV (2011), excellent cum laude and Extraordinary Doctorate Award. Degree in Sociology (UAB, 2002) and Diploma in Social Work (UB, 1995). She has been teaching at the URV since 2003. She has carried out postdoctoral research at the Université Moulay Ismaïl (Morocco), Universidade Estadual de Campinas (Sao Paulo, Brazil) and Universidad de La Habana (Cuba). She has participated in R+D+I research projects of the Plan Nacional de Investigació, on gender issues, migrations and transnational trajectories. In 2013 she received an Academic Activity Award from the URV. She is an external evaluator of publications linked to CSIC Collections, among others. She is currently secretary of the Department.

Research interests: Transnational migration; Cuban migration; migration and gender; migration for love, social intervention and support networks (family, social and institutional).

Teaching: Degree in Social Work; Master's Degree in Innovation in Social and Educational Intervention; Doctoral Programme in Social Work. 

cristina.garcia@urv.cat   

Top

Maria Isabel Gracia Arnaiz (Full Professor)

Mabel holds a PhD in Geography and History, Urban Anthropology Programme (UB, 1994). Researcher at the Medical Anthropology Research Center (MARC), URV. She has been a researcher and visiting professor, among others, at the Edgar Morin Centre (CNRS, Paris), Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social (CIESAS, Mexico); and Visiting Fellow at Durham University (UK) and at the Food Studies Centre of the SOAS, University of London (UK). She has coordinated several R&D projects and has done fieldwork in Spain and Mexico on what is known as "food modernity". She has held various academic management positions with the URV and was director of the Department of Anthropology, Philosophy and Social Work from 2016 to 2020. Currently, she is the principal research of the research project “Eating Matters: The Challenges of Inclusive, Healthy and Sustainable Eating for a Better Ageing”.

Research interests: Anthropology of food; medical anthropology; anthropology of gender.

Teaching: Degree in Anthropology and Human Evolution; Interuniversity Master's Degree in Medical Anthropology and Global Health and Doctoral Programme in Anthropology and Communication.

mabel.gracia@urv.cat   

Top

Daniel Malet Calvo (Lecturer)

PhD in Social Anthropology from the Universitat de Barcelona (2011), with degrees in History (2011) and Anthropology (2005) from the same university. From 2013 to 2025, he was affiliated with Iscte - Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (Portugal), where he taught and developed several research projects. Throughout his career, he has specialized in urban studies, transnational migrations, and ethnographic methods, mainly focusing on four lines of research: (1) International students and student migration: youth cultures, social class, and lifestyle mobility; (2) Urban transformations: night-time gentrification, heritage, touristification, and social movements; (3) Anthropology of infrastructures: daily mobility, urban planning, and public space; (4) Ethnic minorities in the city: identity and everyday resistance in urban contexts. He has participated in several funded projects both in Spain (HABITPAT, FLUXUS, TRANSAFRICA, MOVER) and Portugal (SOUNDSofTOURISM, ChangingCities, CONTOR, FAMI). Throughout his career, he has been part of numerous multidisciplinary research networks, such as OACU, Etno.Urb, and LXNIGHTS (which he co-founded), two COST Actions (as a member), and RedeMigra, which is part of the IMISCOE network on migration studies. He has published numerous research articles in leading journals such as Urban Studies, Population, Space and Place, Social and Cultural Geography, City & Community, Leisure Studies, Journal of Urban Affairs, Journal of Youth Studies, Etnográfica, and Mobilities. In addition, he co-authored the monograph Hiace. Antropología de las carreteras and co-edited the volume Ambiance, Tourism and the City (Routledge).

Research interests: Urban anthropology; lifestyle migrations; ethnography of urban spaces; international student mobility; anthropology of infrastructures.

Teaching: Master in Urban Anthropology, Migrations & Social Intervention

daniel.malet(ELIMINAR)@urv.cat            

Top

Antoni Llort Suárez (Lecturer)

He is an anthropologist and social worker. He recevied his Masters in Medical Anthropology and Doctorate in Anthropology from the Rovira i Virgili University (2016). He is specialized in ethnographic research, qualitative research linked to participatory processes, advocacy strategies, peer support and production of documentaries related to the use of psychoactive substances. Since 2008 he has been coordinator of collective health projects and reduction of damages and risks to the Addiction and Mental Health Service of the Hospital Sant Joan de Reus. He is also part of the research and social intervention team at Episteme and is linked to different activist movements at the local and international level.

antoni.llort(ELIMINAR)@urv.cat

Top

Angel Martinez Hernáez (Full Professor)

Full Professor of Anthropology, ICREA-Academia Award (2020), Distinguished Professor (2019), and director of the Medical Anthropology Research Centre (MARC) at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili. He received his PhD from the Universitat de Barcelona with a thesis that was subsequently published (2000) by Routledge with a foreword by Arthur Kleinman (Harvard University): What's Behind the Symptom? He has been a researcher or visiting professor at the University of California at Berkeley, the Universitá degli Studi di Perugia, the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina (Brazil), the University of California San Diego (Fulbright), and the Università di Roma La Sapienza, among others.  He has authored or co-authored more than 30 books and reports and 150 book chapters and articles in journals such as American Anthropologist, Social Science & Medicine, Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry, BMJ Global Health, Socio-Anthropologie, AM Rivista della Società Italiana di Antropologia Medica, European Journal of Public Health, Medical Anthropology, and Global Public Health, among many others. He has been an expert for the World Health Organization-Regional Office for Europe, and evaluator for several academic and non-academic programmes, such as the "European Commission Framework Programmes". His book co-edited with Stella Evangelidou : RESET: Anthropological reflections amid the Covid-19 pandemic (2020) received the XXIV National University Publishing Award (best monograph in health sciences). Since 2017 he is International Fellow at the Center for Global Mental Health at the University of California San Diego.

Research interests: Medical anthropology; anthropological theory; "biopolitics" of afflictions; health policies in Europe and Latin America; mental health; Amazonian cultures.

Teaching: Degree in Anthropology and Human Evolution; Interuniversity Master's Degree in Medical Anthropology and Global Health; Interuniversity Master's Degree in Youth and Society; FURV postgraduate courses and Doctoral progamme in Anthropology and Communication.

angel.martinez@urv.cat     

Top

Jordi Moreras Palenzuela (Associate Professor – Serra Húnter Programme)

PhD in Anthropology from the URV (2009) and a Master's in Euro-Arab Studies (University of Girona, 1993). Between 1995 and 2001 he was coordinator of the migration area of the CIDOB Foundation and, between 2002 and 2003, head of studies at the Secretariat of Religious Affairs of the Generalitat de Catalunya. He has published many monographs and articles in journals such as The Muslim World, Revista d'Etnologia de Catalunya, Arxiu d'Etnografia de Catalunya, Afers Internacionals, Migraciones and Revue Européenne des Migrations Internationales, among others. He currently coordinates the Master's in Urban Anthropology, Migrations, and Social Intervention.

Research interests: Anthropology of Islam; migration; religion; anthropology of death.

Teaching: Bachelor's Degree in Social Work; Inter-University Master's Degree in Medical Anthropology and Global Health; Master's Degree in Urban Anthropology, Migrations and Social Intervention.    

jordi.moreras@urv.cat

Top

María Offenhenden (Lecturer)

PhD in Anthropology from the Universitat Rovira i Virgili (2017), Master in Migrations and Social Mediation (URV, 2012) and BA in Anthropology from the University of Buenos Aires (2008). Her main lines of research are international migration, reproductive work and the social organisation of care from an intersectional and transnational perspective, in rural and urban areas. She is the author of numerous publications where she has analysed these issues, paying special attention to processes of social stratification, gender, labour market segregation and its consequences for health, as well as processes of collective action and community organisation. She has participated in numerous national and international competitive research projects. Between 2019 and 2021 she has been a postdoctoral researcher at the Haute Ecole Spécialisée de Suisse Occidentale (Valais, Switzerland). She has also worked on several projects aimed at migrant population in different areas of social intervention (educational, legal, socio-assistance), in Milan (Italy) where she lived between 2005 and 2010.

Research areas: international migrations; reproductive work; social organisation of care; gender; health; labour market.

Area de interest: social anthropology.

maria.offenhenden(ELIMINAR)@urv.cat      

Top

Francisco Ortega (ICREA researcher)

MA from Universidad Complutense de Madrid (1986) and a PhD in Philosophy from Bielefeld University (1995). He is also a Visiting Professor at the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine of King's College, London. Before joining ICREA, he was a full professor at the Institute for Social Medicine of the State University of Rio de Janeiro (1999-2021) and Associate Professor at the Federal University of Goiás in Brazil (1996-1999). He was visiting professor at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin, Bielefeld University, Oldenburg University, University of Buenos Aires, CSIC in Madrid, University of Campinas, and Fluminense Federal University in Brazil. He is a member of the Advisory Board of the Movement for Global Mental Health and the Steering Committee of the Global Social Medicine Network.

Research interests: Interactions between global biopsychiatry and local psychiatric epistemologies; revitalization of social medicine as a vital intersection of social sciences, medical practice and policy; interfaces between the brain sciences and the human and social sciences; role of neuroscientific theories in the construction of personal and social identities; pragmatic negotiation of psychiatric diagnosis; and emergence of new forms of solidarity and mutual aid in the context of the health and economic crisis of the covid-19 pandemic

Teaching: Master in Medical Anthropology and Global Health and Doctoral Programme on Anthropology & Communication.

franciscojavier.ortega@urv.cat

Top

Jordi Roca Girona (Full professor)

PhD from the UB (1992). He has been principal investigator of several R+D+I projects of the National Research Plan and other competitive calls projects focused, among others, on the different gender dimensions present in the so-called "love migrations" and "mixed couples". He has done fieldwork in Spain, Mexico, Brazil and Ukraine. He has been director of the Department from 2008 to 2012. He has also been coordinator of the PhD program in Urban Anthropology, with mention of quality, and subsequently of the Anthropology and Anthropology and Communication, as well as responsible for the Master in Urban Anthropology. He has made several visits as guest or visiting professor at the Univ. of California (USA); UNAM, CIESAS and Iberoamericana, in Mexico; and Campinas, UFRJ and Natal, in Brazil; among others. Currently, he is the Coordinator of the Doctoral Programme in Anthropology and Communication.

Research interests: Gender relations; mixed couples; love; migration; memory and biographical narratives; ethnography.

Teaching: Undergraduated programme in Anthropology and Human Evolution; Master in Urban Anthropology, Migrations and Social Intervention and Doctoral programme in Anthropology and Communication.

jordi.roca@urv.cat

Top

Montserrat Soronellas Masdeu (Associate professor)

PhD in Anthropology (URV, 2002). Coordinator of two master's programs of the Department (2007-2016). She has conducted research on the field of family and kinship in the context of the mechanisms of reproduction and transformation of agrarian and rural societies, on which she has published several articles and books. She also studies international migrations, with special interest in transnational families and the impact of migratory flows in rural contexts, new ruralities and re-agrarianization initiatives. The latest projects in which she has participated are linked to the care of the elderly and dependents, gender inequalities and recently on the impact of Covid-19 on caregivers. She is currently one of the principal investigators of a coordinated R+D+I project (2021-2024) on the impact of COVID-19 on the social organization of care and transformation of the social care model. She is also te Head of our Department since 2020.

Research interests: Rural development; international migrations; kinship and social reproduction; family and gender relations; care models.

Teaching: Undergraduated programme in Anthropology and Human Evolution; Degree in Social Work; Degree in Art History; Master in Urban Anthropology, Migrations and Social Intervention and PhD in Anthropology and Communication.

mariamontserrat.soronellas@urv.cat

Top

Ramona Torrens Bonet (Permanent collaborating lecturer)

PhD in Social and Cultural Anthropology (URV, 2009); diploma in Social Work (URV,1989) and degree in Social Anthropology (URV, 1999). Responsible of the Degree in Social Work at the URV in different periods. Promoter of the Master in Innovation in Social and Educational Intervention. She has done research in different population areas (people with intellectual disabilities, migrations, children in poverty, care of dependent people, supervision and impact of COVID-19), always from the perspective of the needs of care and attention to people in vulnerable situations and professionals working in the sectors, the public-private relationship in the management of services and the applied dimension to propose lines of social intervention of local and political impact. Consulting services to socio-educational networks and community plans.

Research interests: Female migrations; care and attention to dependency; social services; third sector; social policy; social exclusion and child poverty.

Teaching: Undergraduated programme in Social Work; Master in Innovation in Social and Educational Intervention; Doctoral programme in Social Work (URV).

ramona.torrens@urv.cat

Top

Jaume Vallverdú Vallverdú (Associate Professor)

PhD in Social and Cultural Anthropology (URV, 1997). He has been a professor at the URV since 1999. Consultant professor at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the UOC, since 2001. He has conducted research work mainly in the fields of religion and religious movements, as well as politics and social movements. Since 2006 she is a member of the Research Group on Anthropology of the Body at the Institution Milà i Fontanals, CSIC. He has developed research projects in Spain on the Hare Krishna movement and Tibetan Buddhism, in Mexico on Pentecostal Protestantism and in Brazil on the Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST). He has also studied political-religious conflict processes and the indigenous movement in Latin America.  He was coordinator of the Anthropology and Human Evolution Degree, Department from 2016-2020. He has been a visiting professor at UFRGS in Porto Alegre, Brazil (2005-06) and was coordinator of the Anthropology and Human Evolution Undergraduate Degree of the Department from 2014-2020. His latest research in R+D+i projects deals with the topics of transhumanism and posthumanism. He is the sole author of several books. The most recent is "Dreams of Perfection. Tantric Buddhism and transhumanist perspective" (2021). Curently, he is the Coordinator of the Master's in Youth and Society.

Research interests: Anthropology of religion; symbolic anthropology; religious movements; social movements; conflict; body; transhumanism; anarchism.

Teaching: Undergraduate degree in Anthropology and Human Evolution; Master's degree in Urban Anthropology, Migrations and Social Intervention; Master's degree in Medical Anthropology and Global Health.

jaime.vallverdu@urv.cat

Top

Laia Ventura Garcia (Lecturer)

PhD in Anthropology and Communication, she has carried out ethnographic work on Chagas, Covid-19, cervical cancer and environmental toxicities. Her research focuses on embodied knowledge, reproductive justice, biomedical cultures, crises and their articulation with social inequalities. Her work also explores auto-ethnographic, participatory, and arts-based methodologies, with a strong commitment to knowledge transfer and social impact. She has been a postdoctoral researcher in the CareNet group (IN3-UOC); UKRI Guarantee Fellow at the Centre for Biomedicine, Self and Society, University of Edinburgh, following a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship; as well as a visiting researcher at the Health Equity Institute of San Francisco State University.

Research interests: toxicity, embodied knowledge, environmental and reproductive justice, (auto)ethnography, participatory and arts-based methodologies

Area of knowledge: Social Anthropology

laia.ventura(ELIMINAR)@urv.cat       

Top

Fernando Vidal (ICREA researcher)

Born in Buenos Aires, he studied psychology, history and philosophy of science at Harvard, Geneva and Paris Universities. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Geneva (1988) and a habilitation from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS, Paris). He has worked on the history of human sciences and mind/brain sciences from early modernity to the present. He has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. He has been visiting researcher, among others, at the American Academy in Rome, Harvard University and the Fondation Brocher (Geneva), as well as visiting professor in Argentina, Brazil, France, Mexico, Japan and Taiwan. Prior to his appointment as ICREA Professor in 2012, for more than a decadehe was a permanent senior research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin. He is an associate member of the Alexandre Koyré Center (EHESS, Paris) and a member of the European Academy.

Research interests: History and anthropology of mental disorders and mind and brain sciences; contemporary "neurocultures"; cultural studies of biopolitics; phenomenology and narratives of distress and illness; person, body and subjectivation in the Western tradition and in intercultural perspective; bioethics.

Teaching: Master in Medical Anthropology and Global Health; Doctoral programme in Anthropology and Communication.

fernando.vidal@icrea.cat 

Top

Eva Zafra Aparici (Associate Professor - Serra Húnter Programme)

PhD in Social and Cultural Anthropology from the University of Barcelona. Her doctoral thesis received the Honourable Mention for Cultural Research Marqués de Lozoya, 2009. She has a Master's degree in Anthropology of Medicine, a Bachelor's degree in Social and Cultural Anthropology and a Diploma in Nursing from the University of Valencia. She is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology, Philosophy and Social Work at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili and a member of the research groups of Social Anthropology of the URV, Food Observatory of the University of Barcelona, UNESCO Chair of Intercultural Dialogue in the Mediterranean, Medical Anthropology Research Center, and the Interuniversity Institute of Women and Gender Studies of Catalonia. She has carried out research and teaching stays at the Institute of Nursing and Health Care (Finland), at the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana-Xochimilco (Mexico), at the Observatoire Cniel des Habitudes Alimentaires (Paris), at the University of Buenos Aires (Argentina), and at the Université Moulay Ismail (Morocco). She is a member of the Community of Practice for the Study of Domestic Homicide, where she is currently participating in the creation of an international repository on gender-based violence orphans, a project funded by the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council, led by Professor Eva Alisic. She has participated in various public administration commissions, and in 2023 she appeared before the Parliament of Catalonia in relation to the regional bill to amend article 47 of Law 5/2008, of 24 April, on the right of women to eradicate gender-based violence, regarding compensation and aid for women victims of gender-based violence and their daughters and sons.
She is currently the coordinator of the Master's Degree in Innovation in Social and Educational Intervention, responsible for Equality in the Faculty of Legal Sciences, and member of the Teaching Innovation and Gender Group of the same faculty. She has participated in and/or led more than 30 national and international projects on health, childhood and gender.

She is currently principal investigator of the following projects: FEMMAP- Geomap on the socio-demographic situation of children who are victims of femicide; DigitaliSSB - Promotion of the Digitalisation of the Basic Social Services of Catalonia; and FEMMINOR – Needs and rights of children of feminicide: A transdisciplinary approach to the consequences of gender violence in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, funded by the Ministry of Science and Innovation (Spanish government). The latter has just received the Joan Pedrerol Gallego Award for the Social Impact of Research 2024.

Research interests: childhood and gender violence; methodological innovations with a gender perspective and intersectionality; food education, health and social cohesion.

Teaching: Undergraduate degree in Social Work; Master in Innovation in Social and Educational Intervention; Doctoral programme in Social Work; Doctoral programme in Anthropology and Communication.

eva.zafra@urv.cat 

 

Top