Paloma Yáñez Serrano

I am an ethnographic filmmaker and social anthropologist interested in the methods of adaptation that humans develop to address the changing environment, technology and political conflicts. My Ph.D. in social anthropology with visual media, at the University of Manchester, focused on farmers’ and labourers’ everyday survival strategies in Almería’s plastic sea, in southern Spain. It explored workers’ embodied adaptations and resistances to industrial agriculture practices and the possibilities of agroecology. I have also carried out research on the energy transition in the oil industry, the effects of heatwaves on older adults living in urban heat islands, children play in post-revolutionary Cairo, the informal music scene in Goma DRC, the taboo of cancer in Lebanon and participatory filmmaking to combat inequalities among young adults in Rio de Janeiro. I am a member of the production company Big Tree Collective and the Visual Research Network. I have published in Visual Ethnography and the Journal of Environmental Media and my work has been awarded with the University of Manchester’s Research Excellence Award, the EASA Food Network Award and the Docs Without Borders Research Award.