Carolina Garcia
Assistant Professor | School of Social Innovation Élisabeth-Bruyère
Faculty staff
Profile
Carolina Garcia (she/her) is an assistant professor at Saint Paul University’s Élisabeth Bruyère School of Social Innovation. She holds a PhD in Social Sciences from the Universidade Estadual de Campinas (Brazil). Before joining Saint Paul University, she was a Banting Postdoctoral Fellow (2024–2025) at Concordia University’s Simone de Beauvoir Institute. Her interdisciplinary work spans transnational feminisms, critical approaches to global development, sociology of work, and critical migration studies, grounded in decolonial and transnational feminist theories. Examining the intersections of neoliberalism and the social organization of work through intersectional feminist lenses, she is particularly interested in how gender, race, class, and nationality shape labor regimes, entrepreneurship, and citizenship, and how empowerment discourses influence policy interventions as well as everyday practices. Her doctoral research introduced the concept of empowerment economies to analyze how international development agencies and corporate social responsibility initiatives mobilize gendered and racialized narratives to integrate women from the Global South into entrepreneurial labor markets. More broadly, her work engages qualitative methodologies such as multi-sited ethnography, in-depth interviews, and discourse analysis to advance debates on neoliberalism, governance, moral economies, and feminist alternatives to dominant development and labor models.
Postdoctorate
Concordia University, Simone de Beauvoir Institute, 2024-2025
PhD
State University of Campinas (Brazil), Social Sciences, 2019-2023
MA
Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Urban Planning, 2016-2018
BA
Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul, Social Communication, 2005-2009
- Transnational Feminisms & Feminist Political Economy
- Critical Migration Studies & Citizenship Regimes
- Sociology of Work, Precarity & Entrepreneurship
- Neoliberalism, Governance & Moral Economies
- Decolonial and Intersectional Feminist Theories
- Qualitative & Ethnographic Methodologies
- Gender, Race, Class & Global Development Discourses
Peer-Reviewed Papers
- GARCIA, C. G. (2025). Empowering refugee women in Brazil: the moral economy of corporate-sponsored initiatives for social integration, Journal of Refugee Studies, Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/jrs/feaf027
- GARCIA, C. G. (2025) “Dona de si”: women’s empowerment as affective economies in corporate-sponsored entrepreneurship training. Socius.
https://doi.org/10.1177/23780231251324988 - GARCIA, C. G. (2024) Corporate Social Responsibility and the Win-Win Paradigm for Women’s Empowerment in Brazil. Organicom – Brazilian Journal of Organizational Communication and Public Relations, University of São Paulo Press, 21(46), 88-99. https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.2238-2593.organicom.2024.227825
- GARCIA, C. G. (2024). Entrepreneurship and Self-Employment amidst Immigrant Women in Canada: A Narrative Review towards an Intersectional and Intersectoral Research Agenda. International Journal of Gender and Entrepreneurship. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJGE-07-2024-0234
- GARCIA, C. G. (2024) “The country’s economic recovery will be driven by women”: mothers as moral citizens in Brazilian far-right discourses, Plural, 31(1), 142-162. https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.2176-8099.pcso.2024.222718
- Gallo Garcia, C. (2022). “Be the change that you want to see in the world”: A Moral Economy of Volunteering for Female Empowerment in Brazil. Women’s Studies, 52(1), 61–78. https://doi.org/10.1080/00497878.2022.2137803
- GARCIA, C. G. (2022) Feminism took the streets: new strategies of commons in Latin America. The Munich Social Science Review (MSSR). New Series, Volume 5, pp 129 – 135.
- GARCIA, C. G. (2021) Mierle Ukeles between art and maintenance work. Revista Intersecções – UERJ, v.23, issue 2, pp. 382-407, 2021. (Published in Portuguese)
- GARCIA, C. G. (2019). Adrian Piper and the agonistic model of public spaces. Revista Pixo, v.3 p.62-79. (Published in Portuguese)
- GARCIA, C.; SCHUCK, E. (2018). Feminist movements in the city and its discursiveness. PERCURSOS (FLORIANÓPOLIS. ONLINE), v. v.20, p. 141-159. (Published in Portuguese)
- CARDOSO, R. C.; GARCIA, C. (2017). From production to consumption: Creative and Cultural Appropriation in the Urban Landscape. Boletim Geografico do Rio Grande do Sul, v. 30, p. 33-47. (Published in Portuguese)
- GARCIA, C. G.; FLORISSI, S. (2017). Creative Economy and Public Policies: the case study of the film industry cluster in Porto Alegre. LATITUDE, v. 11, p. 343-384. (Published in Portuguese)
- GARCIA, C. G.; FLORISSI, S. (2017) Creative Economy, creative cities: Latin-American cases. Dialogues in Creative Economy, ESPM, v. 2, p. 38. (Published in Portuguese)
- GARCIA, C. G. (2016). City and Culture: New Socio-spatial Configurations in the post-industrial era. Revista Contraponto, v. 3, p. 7-22. (Published in Portuguese)
Book Chapters
- GARCIA, C.G. (2023). Liberal Feminism. In: Feminismos em Movimento. Belo Horizonte: Editora Luas, (Published in Portuguese)
- GARCIA, C. G. (2023). Feminism and Neoliberalism: notes on a marriage. In: Ciências sociais: a sociedade em sua integralidade. Piracanjuba: Editora Conhecimento Livre. (Published in Portuguese). https://doi.org/10.37423/230507783
- GARCIA, C. G. (2022). Women as smart economics: international organizations and business leadership. In: Geopolitics and Emerging Debates in Politics, Economics, Religion and Culture. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Publicar. (Published in Portuguese) http://doi.org/10.47402/ed.ep.c2022229515242
- GARCIA, C.G.; SCHUCK, E. (2020) Feminist movements in the city: new strategies of commons in Latin American context. In: MACRI, Emmanuela, MOREA, Valeria, TRIMARCHI, Michele. Cultural Commons and Urban Dynamics. Berlin: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54418-8
Review Essay
- GARCIA, C.G. (2022). Book Review. Imagining the Girl Effect: an ethnography of corporate social responsibility. Girlhood Studies, Volume 15, issue 2, pp 144-147.
Interview
- GARCIA, C. G. ; VALLE, A. F. P. (2023). June 2013 : Coup d’État and Revolution – interview with Maria Carlotto. In: Cadernos CEMARX. Campinas, SP, v. 17, n. 00, p. 1-21, e023013. https://doi.org/10.20396/cemarx.v17i00.18544
Special Issue Editor
VALLE, A. F. P.; LAUREANO, A.; GARCIA, C. G.; PRANDI, F.; DEL PASSO, O.; MOIMAZ, R. (2024) A crise brasileira: 10 anos das manifestações de 2013. Cadernos Cemarx, Campinas, SP, v. 17, n. 00, p. e023014. https://doi.org/10.20396/cemarx.v17i00.18699