Biography

Rita Calvário is an Integrated Researcher at DINÂMIA'CET-Iscte, the Centre for Socioeconomic and Territorial Studies at Iscte - University Institute of Lisbon, and a Collaborating Researcher at the Centre for Social Studies (CES), University of Coimbra. An interdisciplinary social scientist specialising in rural sociology and political ecology, her research focuses on rural social movements, agrarian transformations, food system transitions, and the power relations shaping agri-food systems, particularly in Southern Europe. She currently leads an FCT-funded project examining gender inequalities and the role of rural women in Portuguese agriculture, as well as an FCT-COMPETE 2030 project on rural women and agroecology in the Iberian Peninsula. In addition, she coordinates the Portuguese team of the Horizon Europe project SWIFT - Supporting Women-led Innovation in Farming Territories, where she investigates the experiences and working conditions of migrant women farmworkers in Portugal's intensive agricultural regions. Over the past five years, she has led several nationally and internationally funded research projects and published extensively with leading academic publishers, including Routledge and Fernwood Publishing, as well as in internationally recognised journals such as The Journal of Peasant Studies.