Thesis title

'Resistance, Dignity and Purpose: Encountering ‘Self-Determination’ and ‘Development’ with a Garífuna Community in Honduras' [provisional title]

Supervisors

Dr Richard Martin (Law), Dr Harry Walker (Anthropology)

Research interests/areas

human rights law, law and anthropology, collective rights, moral philosophy, political philosophy

Leonardo’s research explores ‘self-determination’ and ‘development’ as peoples’ rights to form and to give practical significance to a collective identity. Working on a moral-constructivist interpretation of these rights, it will look at how local encounters with their underlying ideologies contribute to create discursive environments that influence how groups constitute, negotiate and express political belonging and conceptions of the collective legal person. His research will employ methods from Anthropology and involves the participant observation of a struggle of self-determination in Northern Honduras.

Leonardo holds a Master of Laws degree from the LSE (with distinction in all subjects) and a Título de Abogado from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Honduras (first in cohort). He has worked with the Indigenous Peoples and Minorities Section of the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, and with the Case Division of the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights. In Honduras he worked as a legal officer for the Norwegian Refugee Council, the penitentiary system and the judiciary.

His studies are funded with a PhD Studentship awarded by the Department of Law of the LSE.