Alejandra Osejo Varona

ALEJANDRA OSEJO VARONA, then a graduate student at Rice University, Houston, Texas, was approved funding in April 2024 to aid research on “Hippos: Invasive Species and Environmental Governance in Colombia,” supervised by Dr. Cymene Howe. This project explores the transformation of hippopotamuses from a vulnerable species in Africa into a designated invasive threat in Colombia. Originating from the legacy of drug trafficking, the 169 hippos inhabiting the Colombian Magdalena River serve as a lens to examine the intersection of environmental governance, multispecies justice, and the memory of the armed conflict. Through seventeen months of ethnographic fieldwork (2023–2025) involving policy analysis, institutional interviews, and immersive community engagement, the research investigates how divergent imaginaries — viewing hippos as either invaders or victims — shape current conservation strategies and local livelihoods. By pioneering a multimodal and interdisciplinary methodology that fuses anthropology with biology and the sonic arts, the study integrated participatory mapping and acoustic ethnography to document human-animal coexistence. These findings were disseminated globally through academic conferences (4S, AAA) and innovative public outreach, including immersive soundwalks and collaborations with sound artists. Beyond its scholarly contributions, the project fostered professional development by training a new generation of researchers in Colombia and the U.S. Ultimately, this work provides a transformative framework for NGOs and policymakers, linking river restoration to socio-ecological reparation and advocating for a concept of justice that encompasses both human and non-human inhabitants of the Magdalena River.