María Cárdenas
María Cárdenas is an Associate Fellow at PRIF’s Research Department Local Peace Orders and a postdoctoral researcher at Goethe University Frankfurt. Her research interests include critical peace and security studies, pluriversality, peace and violence ontologies and epistemologies, social movements, and critical racism and ethnicity studies. She works with critical ethnography and collaborative methods on issues related to peace- and security with Indigenous, Afro-Colombian, Palenquero, Raizal, and Rrom-Gitano activists in Colombia.
Press photo
CV
| since 2025
Associate Fellow at PRIF’s Research Department Local Peace Orders
| 2025
Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology from Justus-Liebig-University of Giessen, Germany. Title: Ethnic(ized) activism and its decolonizing potential to build pluriversal peace. The case of Colombia. (summa cum laude); Department of Sociology and Graduate Center for the Study of Culture
| since 2022
Research associate at the Chair of Sociology for the Study of Culture and Migration, Goethe University of Frankfurt (on parental leave 08/2022-03/2023)
| 2020-2022
Research associate and lecturer at General Sociology / BRIDGES project, Justus-Liebig-University of Giessen, Germany
| 2016-2017
Youth coordinating officer for the UN-Joint Youth Results Group | Office of the Resident Coordinator (UNRC)/United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), Dili, East Timor
| 2015-2016
Project assistant and Junior Project Manager at AMBERO Consulting GmbH
| 2015
Seconded expert for Peacefund Timor-Leste (German Society for International Cooperation giz) on behalf of AMBERO GmbH
| 2014
M.A. Peace and Conflict Research, Center for Conflict Studies, Philipps-University of Marburg
Publications
- On Pluriversality and Governance
| 2025
Cárdenas, María (2025): On Pluriversality and Governance. Decolonizing Lessons from Colombia, International Affairs, 101: 6, 1957–1974. DOI: 10.1093/ia/iiaf075 - Why peacebuilding is condemned to fail if it ignores ethnicization
| 2023
Cárdenas, María (2023): Why peacebuilding is condemned to fail if it ignores ethnicization. The case of Colombia, Peacebuilding, 11: 2, 185–204. DOI: 10.1080/21647259.2022.2128583 - »Kultur der Gewalt« in Kolumbien?
| 2018
»Kultur der Gewalt« in Kolumbien?. Zum Mehrwert der Integration von post-/dekolonialen Perspektiven in sozialpsychologischen Arbeiten bei der Analyse von Konflikt und Gewalt am Beispiel einer Online-Studie mit jungen Erwachsenen in Bogotá, in: Dittmer, Cordula (eds), Dekoloniale und Postkoloniale Perspektiven in der Friedens- und Konfliktforschung, Zeitschrift für Friedens- und Konfliktforschung (ZefKo): Sonderband Nr. 2, Baden-Baden: Nomos, 222–260. DOI: 10.5771/9783845291307 - Kriegstraumata und ihre Langzeitfolgen in Guatemala
| 2016
Cárdenas, María; Schultheiß, Philipp (2016): Kriegstraumata und ihre Langzeitfolgen in Guatemala. Ein gruppenspezifischer Ansatz, 360° – Das studentische Journal für Politik und Gesellschaft, 11: 2, 20–31. DOI: 10.3224/360grad.v11i2.26245
- Gleichstellungspolitik der Diversität dekolonisieren – Hochschule im Spannungsverhältnis von Diversität, Rassismuskritik und Kolonialität
| 2024
Gutiérrez-Rodríguez, Encarnación; Cárdenas, María; Ehrich, Cuso (2024): Gleichstellungspolitik der Diversität dekolonisieren – Hochschule im Spannungsverhältnis von Diversität, Rassismuskritik und Kolonialität, in: Le Breton, Maritza; Burren, Susanne; Bachmann, Susanne (eds), Differenzkritische Perspektiven auf Fachhochschulen und Universitäten. Beiträge zur Regional- und Migrationsforschung, Wiesbaden: Springer VS, 89-110. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-658-44988-9_6
ISBN: 978-3-658-44988-9 - Epistemologías decoloniales y de los pueblos hacia la construcción de paz en Colombia
| 2023
Cárdenas, María; Henao Conde, Edwin Alexander; Palacios Angulo, Ariel Rosebel (2023): Epistemologías decoloniales y de los pueblos hacia la construcción de paz en Colombia, in: Guerrero, Mario Fernando; Mantilla Prada, Ignacio; Peters, Stefan (eds), Aportes a los estudios de conflicto y construcción de paz desde Colombia, Bd. 2, Bogotá: Editorial Universidad Nacional de Colombia, 160–182.
ISBN: 978-958-505-205-5 - Decolonizing perspectives in peace research
| 2023
Cárdenas, María (2023): Decolonizing perspectives in peace research, in: Cohrs, Christopher; Knab, Nadine; Sommer, Gert (eds). DOI: 10.17192/es2022.0022 - Aspectos psicosociales y poscoloniales para una paz positiva
| 2018
Cárdenas, María (2018): Aspectos psicosociales y poscoloniales para una paz positiva, in: Muriel Ciceri, Hernan Jose; Checa Mendiburu, Mariella; Krüggeler, Thomas (eds), Paz, reconciliación y justicia transicional en Colombia y América Latina, Bogotá: Editorial Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, 107–124.
Publication
ISBN: 9789587814187
- Maristella Svampa. Epochenwechsel in Lateinamerika. Progressive Regierungen, Extraktivismus und soziale Bewegungen
| 2020
Maristella Svampa. Epochenwechsel in Lateinamerika. Progressive Regierungen, Extraktivismus und soziale Bewegungen. - Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui Ch'ixinakax utxiwa. Eine Reflexion über Praktiken und Diskurse der Dekolonisierung
| 2018
Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui Ch'ixinakax utxiwa. Eine Reflexion über Praktiken und Diskurse der Dekolonisierung .
- Dismantling Walls - Building Bridges. Creating antiracist feminist alliances within, outside, and against universitie
| 2022
Dismantling Walls - Building Bridges. Creating antiracist feminist alliances within, outside, and against universitie.
Further Activities
| since 2025
Board Member of the German Peace and Conflict Research Association (Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Friedens- und Konfliktforschung e.V. – AFK)
| 2020–2022
Member of the Ethnic Peoples & Peace - Global Network (funded by the SSHRC Connections Grant)
| 2012–2020
Editorial board member at Wissenschaft & Frieden
| 2016–2019
International Graduate Centre in the Study of Culture (GCSC), Justus-Liebig University Giessen, Germany. Doctoral Student Member
- Seeking Pervivencia: Autonomous Peace and Protection Mechanisms as Pluriversal Responses to Transnational Security Threats. (Paper). Panel: Care, Relationality and Decolonial Feminist Agendas for Peace. (Paper Giver). EISA PEC 2025, Bologna, Italia, 08/2025.
- Ethnic(ized) Activism and Its Decolonizing Potential to Build Pluriversal Peace: The Case of Colombia (Lecture to receive the Honorable Mention), Conference of Forum for Peace Psychology, 06/2025.
- Thinking Pluriversal Protection through Rooted (and Conventional) Diplomacy Networks. (Lecture). In: Pluriversalität: Umkämpfte Räume und soziopolitische Konflikte [‘Pluriversality: Contested Spaces and Socio-Political Conflicts’] (Lecture Series), Goethe University of Frankfurt, 05/2025.
- Workshop: Decolonizing Peace Theory (Paper). Peace Theory in Times of Ever New Wars /Where from – where to, Goethe University of Frankfurt, 12/2024.
- Failing intersectionality? Difficulties in addressing CRSGBV in/with ethnicized communities. Online Guest Lecture for Peace & Justice Studies, Pace University, New York, USA, 04/2025.
- El activismo étnico/étnizado para construir una paz pluriversal y su potencial descolonizador. El caso de Colombia (Papergiver) [‘Ethnic/ethnicized activism to build a pluriversal peace and its decolonizing potential. The case of Colombia’]. XIV Latin American Congress on Peace Research, Bogotá, Kolumbien, 04/2025.
- Sobre la pluriversalidad y la paz: lecciones descolonizadoras en Colombia. Diálogos de las Ciencias Sociales [‘On pluriversality and peace: lessons in decolonization in Colombia. Social Science Dialogues’]. Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Bogotá, Colombia, 03/2025
- Pluriversality and Peace Research: Navigating (Self-) Transformation in Critical Peace Research (Chair). International Studies Association - Annual Conference, Chicago, USA, 03/2025.
- Protecting the pluriverse - on pluriversal strategies for planetary survival (Papergiver). International Studies Association - Annual Conference, Chicago, USA, 03/2025.
- Guardias: Autonomous Community Protection Systems in Colombia. Online Input for Civilian-Based Defence put to the Test - Current Issues and Practical Challenges. 09/2024.
- Peacebuilding and Ethnicization. Online Guest Lecture for Identity and World Politics - Current International Issues. University of Deusto, Bilbao, Spain, 04/2024.
- Building an Inclusive Peace: Differential approach and intersectionality in the Colombian Peacebuilding Process. Speaker at Online Panel, CAPAZ Institute, 06/2022.
- Herrschaftskritische Zutaten für Forschung & Lehre [Ingredients for critical liberatory research and teaching], Podcast Fokus Frieden. With Philipp Lottholz & Leon Kianzad, 03/2025.
- Auf dem Weg zur zivilen Stadt, Interview with María Cárdenas [On the way to a civil city], Interview with María Cárdenas, by Kotzur, L. and Otremba, L., in: UNEINS Magazine, Issue 8/2022, pp. 64–67.
- El Infierno de ser minoría [The Hell of being a Minority], Interview in a radio program by Natalia Messer for WDR: Cosmo, Estación Sur, 10/2020.
- Was ist eigentlich Dekolonisierung? [What is decolonization anyway?], Interview by Kuner, L. in Matices, issue 101/2020.
- Conference. (Post)koloniale Gewalt. Lunch&Reflect-Event, Platform for Civil Conflict Transformation, Germany, 07/2025.
- Frieden in Kolumbien und der deutsche Beitrag [Peace in Colombia and the German Contribution]. Meeting with Members of the German Parliament Bundestag and Colombian Indigenous and Afrocolombian Activists, online, 04/2022. Moderation and Translation.
- Several short-term consultancies for GIZ, UNDP, UNRCO, DVG-VK, and AMBERO GmbH.
| 2025
Honorable Mention for Doctoral Thesis; Gert Sommer Prize, Forum Peace Psychology
| 2018
Göttinger Peace Prize as member of the Editorial board of Wissenschaft & Frieden
| 2017–2021
Doctoral Scholarship from Rosa Luxemburg Foundation