Graduate Student Spotlight: Catalina Alvarado-Cañuta

The UConn Department of Anthropology is home to a diverse community of graduate students studying a variety of subfields. Continue reading to learn more about their favorite parts of their research, why they became interested in anthropology, and fun facts about them!


About Catalina

Catalina Alvarado-Cañuta belongs to the Mapuche people of Chile. She is a social worker and has a Master’s degree in Social Anthropology from the Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social (CIESAS) in Mexico, where she studied childbirth care for Mapuche women in an intercultural hospital in Mapuche territory. She has worked in public service as a manager of health programs for the indigenous population and as an academic at universities in Chile.

Catalina is currently a Fulbright scholar. In her Ph.D., she studies the healing processes of colonial wounds of indigenous peoples through art.

Research Interests

Medical Anthropology, Collective Healing, Colonial Wounds and Trauma, Intercultural Health, Indigenous Peoples, Decolonizing Methodologies, Indigenous Art