Dr. Filiberto Penados is Associate Professor of Critical Development and Indigenous Studies and coordinator of the Master of Science in Development Studies in the Faculty of Arts Science and Technology. His research and teaching focus on critical and Indigenous development and education, community engagement, and Indigenous research methodologies.
Dr. Penados scholarship addresses the challenge of constructing sustainable and just futures with particular attention to the challenge of reimagining and recrafting dominant relationships to land and each other. His current work examines Indigenous future-making and sustainability transitions from below, seeking to understand the alternative futures envisioned and enacted by Indigenous peoples and grassroots communities. This research also explores ethical and productive ways of facilitating, accompanying and learning from these efforts; as well as the ways they contribute to the broader project of social and ecological transformations. Dr. Penados work centres decolonial and indigenous perspectives, challenging conventional development paradigms and foregrounding Indigenous epistemologies and practices.
Dr. Penados has a long history of collaborative work with indigenous organizations and communities in Belize and Central American including the Belize Indigenous Council, the Toledo Maya Alcalde Association of Belize, The Central American Indigenous Council and the Latin American Fund for Indigenous Peoples. He has served as an Indigenous expert and consultant for local organisations, the Government of Belize, and international institutions, including the International Fund for Agricultural Development.
Dr Penados currently serves on the Board of Directors of The Land Tenure Facility, an international organisation supporting Indigenous, Afro-descendant, and local communities in securing and sustaining land tenure. He holds honorary appointments at the University of Manitoba and the University of Liverpool. He also serves as a reviewer for several academic journals and is an editor of Interface: A Journal for and about Social Movements.
Selected Publications
Penados, F. (forthcoming) Language, Loss, and the Making of Race and Colonial Space: The Case of a Yucatec Maya Community in Belize. In Figuera, R. and Tinker Sachs, G. (Eds.), World Englishes and the Politics of Internationalization: critical perspectives from the English Caribbean. Routeledge.
Penados, F., Rosado, L., Tzib, D, Gonzales, G. and Lee, J. (forthcoming), Indigenous Peoples participation in Higher Education in Belize: present realities and its implication for policy and practice. Ichan Tecolotl.
Gahman, L., Penados, F., Coc, C. and Smith, S. (2025). Protecting Community, Territory, and Relations via Movement-building: The Politics of Development, Environmental Defence, and Indigenous Future-making. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/defending-community-territory-and-indigenous-environmental-relations/3E9F8AADC6D23D51A9DCFB93567FCE92
Peller, H., F. Penados, and J. Wainwright (2023). “Class processes and agrarian change in southern Belize, 1981–2020.” The Journal of Peasant Studies 50(7), 2851-287, Available: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10.1080/03066150.2022.2153041?needAccess=true
Downey, S. S., Walker, M., Moschler, J., Penados, F., Peterman, W., Pop, J., Song, S. (2023). An intermediate level of disturbance with customary agricultural practices increases species diversity in Maya community forests in Belize. Communications Earth and Environment, 4(1). Available: https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-023-01089-6
Gahman. L., Penados, F., and Smith, S.J. (2022). A Beginner’s Guide to Building Better Worlds. Bristol University Press.
Penados, F., Gahman, L., & Smith, S. J. (2022). Land, race, and (slow) violence: Indigenous resistance to racial capitalism and the coloniality of development in the Caribbean. Geoforum, (July). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2022.07.004
Smith, S.J., Penados, F., and Gahman, L., (2021) Desire Over Damage: Epistemological Shifts for Well-being and Dignity. Sociology of Health and Illness, Special Issue: Complicity: Methodologies of Power, Politics, and the Ethics of Knowledge Production.
Gahman, L., Penados, F., and Greenidge, A. (2019). Indigenous Resurgence, Decolonial Praxis, Alternative futures: The Maya Leaders Alliance of Southern Belize. Social Movement Studies, https://doi.org/10.1080/14742837.2019.1709433.
Penados, F. (2018). Governance and Indigenous Education in Belize: Lessons from the Maya land rights struggle and Indigenous education initiatives. In E. Mckinley and L. Tuhiwai Smith (Eds.), Handbook of Indigenous Education. Singapore: Springer.
Kosempel, P., Olson, L. G., and Penados, F. (2017). The Unseen Revolution: Leadership for Sustainability in the Tropical Biosphere. In B.W. Redekop, D.R. Gallagherm, and R. Satterwhite, (Eds.), Innovation in Environmental Leadership: Critical Perspectives. New York: Routledge.
Penados, F., and Chatarpal M. (2015). Food security and Maya Land Rights: Crafting Paths of “Development with Identity.” In N. Encalada, R. Cocom, P. Pelayo, and G. Pinelo, (Eds.), Research Reports in Belizean History and Anthropology Volume 3: A Compilation of History and Anthropology. Paper presented the 2014 Belize Archaeology and Anthropology Symposium, San Ignacio, Belize (pp. 104-120). Belize: Institute for Social and Cultural Research.