Professor in the Department of Historical and Geographical Sciences at the Universidad de Tarapacá.
Associate Researcher at the Center for Intercultural and Indigenous Research (CIIR).
Director of the Millenium Nucleus on Andean Peatlands (AndesPeat).
Manuel Prieto’s research agenda is situated at the intersection of political and cultural ecology, political geography, and environmental science. His primary objective is to unravel the intricate connections among various forms of ecological knowledge, political economy, the state formation process, and the interaction of identities with nature in the shaping and perpetuation of unequal territories.
In his ongoing projects, he places particular emphasis on understanding the socioecological transformations occurring in the high Andean wetlands and agricultural valleys of the Atacama Desert. He examines these transformations in relation to factors such as climate change, the privatization of nature, the cultural management of water resources, shifts in land use, and industrial activities.
Dr. Prieto has published in renowned scientific journals and has received research funding from the Chilean National Agency for Research and Development (ANID) and the Fulbright scholarship, among others. Additionally, he serves on the editorial boards of several scientific journals and currently holds the position of Director of the Geography and Urbanism Evaluation Committee of Fondecyt (National Fund for Scientific and Technological Development).
