Maka Suarez, PhD, MA

Maka Suarez’s global work focuses on economic, political, and medical issues from an anthropological perspective. Her interests in global health equity align with the Center’s themes of empowering women and strengthening systems for health. Her research explores connections and ruptures within disciplinary understandings of mental health, particularly how specific historical, cultural, and economic settings modify and shape how global health is accessed and experienced in the everyday. She has worked on a project studying how rural communities faced pandemics with a focus on income loss and mental health. Suarez is co-founder of Kaleidos: the Center for Interdisciplinary Ethnography, housed at the University of Cuenca in southern Ecuador. Kaleidos studies local problems through global perspectives and partnerships.