Cristen Dávalos is an Assistant Professor in International Relations at the Social Sciences and Humanities College of the Universidad San Francisco (Quito, Ecuador) where she teaches Introduction to International Relations, Introduction to Quantitative and Qualitative Methods, Political Economy of Inequality, as well as Gender and Development.

Dávalos holds a BA in International Relations from Lake Forest College (USA), a MA degree in Development studies from the International Institute of Social Studies (The Netherlands), and a PhD in the School of Political Science and International Relations and the School of Geography from Queen Mary, University of London (UK). 

She has published numerous articles on the themes of migration and mobility from a gender perspective. Dávalos has two forthcoming articles titled Localizing Masculinities in the Global Care Chains: Experiences in Spain and Ecuador (2018) and Moving with Masculine Care in the City: Informal transit and laboring practicing in Quito, Ecuador (2018, co-author), among others.

During her 2018 fall visiting fellowship at PLAS, Dávalos will work on her current research projects.  The objective of her main project is to examine women´s experiences on informal transit in Quito, Ecuador.  Indeed, women face restriction in their daily mobility revolving around access to precarious, unsafe and male dominated transport infrastructure.  This is manifested mostly through women’s fear associated to violence, harassment and theft. This project demonstrates how mobile women challenge these boundaries by employing coping strategies to improve their personal protection and safety.  In addition, Dávalos will also work on her research projects on gender violence in the Galapagos Islands (Ecuador), and on the Venezuelan refugee crisis in Ecuador.

Dávalos will be at PLAS during the month of October 2018.