Dr. Diana C贸rdoba, Associate Professor in Global Development Studies at Queen's University, has won the Special Prize: Research in Motion for her project Beyond the Plantation: Making Black Geographies Visible in Colombian Land Use Planning.
Dr. C贸rdoba's work documents participatory mapping with Black community councils in Colombia's Cauca Valley, bringing invisible agricultural landscapes and food systems into formal land-use planning. Supported by a SSHRC Insight Grant, the project asks what it would take for these overlooked landscapes to count in decisions that shape their futures.
Dr. C贸rdoba's video, , examines how runaway slaves once sought refuge in lands the plantation economy deemed unfit for agriculture in the floodplains of the Cauca River Valley. Post-abolition, Black communities built small, biodiverse farms there鈥揷acao, plantain, papaya, and fishing鈥揺stablishing collective food systems sustaining local economies and ecosystems for generations. Yet, in official land-use plans, these farms rarely appear. Through participatory action research with eight Black community councils, the research team gathers in towns like Robles and Villapaz to map what official data ignores, developing planning instruments to bring these landscapes into formal land-use decisions. In land-use planning, what is not measured often does not exist. This project supported by a SSHRC Insight Grant asks what it would take for these landscapes to count.
Queen's Art of Research is a photo and video contest that showcases research shaping the world through the researcher's own perspective.
Discover more about Dr. C贸rdoba's work and the other 2026 Art of Research winners on the Queen's Gazette.