Paula Dias is an International Development Qualitative Researcher at American Institutes for Research. Paula received her PhD from Brown University in 2017. She holds a MA in Anthropology from Brown University and a BA in Anthropology and French Literature from Indiana University.
Her research was supported by the National Science Foundation, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the Inter-American Foundation and the Social Science Research Council. Paula’s graduate work was also supported by a NSF IGERT Fellowship through the Watson Institute’s Graduate Program in Development.
Her primary interests include: anthropology of development, ethnography of the state and corporations, identity and ethnicity in Brazil and Latin America. In 2012-2013, Paula conducted fieldwork with quilombo (maroon) communities participating in state-mandated environmental education projects implemented by oil companies in southeast Brazil. Her dissertation explores the political implications of oil-sponsored community development projects, focusing on how they can help us understand corporate and bureaucratic power as well as novel strategies of grassroots politics in development affected areas.
