Since 04/2022: Associate at the GIGA Institute for Latin American Studies
Since 04/2022: Senior Researcher, Arnold-Bergstraesser-Institut (ABI)
01/2018 - 03/2022: Doctoral Student in Political Sciences at the University of Marburg and member of the GIGA Doctoral Programme
2016 - 2017: Doctoral Student in Political Sciences at the Freie Universität in Berlin and member of the GIGA Doctoral Programme, DAAD scholarship holder
01/2013 - 05/2016: Lecturer, Undergraduate Program Business and International Relations School, La Salle University, Bogotá
11/2012 - 2016: Research Associate at the Center for Research on Peace Dialogue, National University of Colombia
2005 - 2016: Member of the Research Group on Security and Defence, Faculty of Law and Political and Social Sciences, the National University of Colombia
2014 - 2015: Grant "Young researchers" Program, Administrative Department of Science, Technology and Innovation of the Republic of Colombia COLCIENCIAS. Project: "Security Sector Reform and peace building in Colombia"
12/2013 - 05/2014: Consultant at the project "Mapping of relevant actors for post-conflict and identification of needs of national and international support," Embassy of Switzerland in Colombia and the National University of Colombia
2012 - 2015: Researcher at the project "Governance, security and development at Chile’s North and South Extreme zones," National Academy of Political and Strategical Studies ANEPE and Fund for Science and Technology of the Republic of Chile FONDECYT
2008 - 2012: Researcher of the Work Group "Security and Democracy in Latin America," Latin American Council of Social Sciences CLACSO
2010 - 2011: Research Assistant at the Advanced Studies Institute IDEA, University of Santiago of Chile USACH
Current Research
Urban Violence and Non State Armed Actors in Latin America
Latin American Studies Association (LASA), Membership in region-specific association or network, since 2018
Women in Security and Defense in Latin America and the Caribbean - Amassuru, Membership in discipline-specific association or network, since 2018
Dissertation
Local Order, Violence, and Trajectories of Governance in Peripheral Cities in Colombia and El Salvador
Awards
LASA price: Best Book 2024 by the section "Defense, Public Security and Democracy" from the Latin American Studies Association LASA, Latin American Studies Association (LASA), 2025
Dissertation prize: 1st place of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Deutsche Lateinamerikaforschung ADLAF-Prize, Nachwuchsgruppe der Arbeitsgemeinschaft Deutsche Lateinamerikaforschung (ADLAF), 2024
GIGA Researcher Viviana García Pinzón Awarded 2023 Christiane Rajewsky Prize, German Association for Peace and Conflict Studies (AFK), 2023
Trajectories of Governance studies the complex dynamics of order-making, violence and governance in peripheral cities in Latin America from a comparative, historical and multi-scalar approach. It aims to discover more about the drivers, contexts and uneven levels of violence through the case studies of Chalatenango and Sonsonate in El Salvador and Pereira and Tunja in Colombia.
Pursuing a PhD is an exigent endeavor entailing various psychological and organizational challenges. This article proposes our adaptation of the agile method Scrum, which we call “ScrumAdemia,” as a solution.
Extant research has analysed the impact of security policies, truces and informal agreements on both the dynamics and traits of organized violence in El Salvador. However, less is understood about variation in the levels of lethal violence across subnational units. This article contributes to filling this gap.
The pandemic altered the opportunity structures of state and non-state armed actors, exacerbated grievances, prompted new investments in services provision, and created new spaces for cooperation, thereby affecting the dynamics of violence across different dimensions and time horizons.
Replication data for: Franco, Clara, Anna Fünfgeld, Viviana García Pinzón, Jan Klenke, Rebecca Lohmann, Désirée Reder, and Swantje Schirmer (2023), Introducing ScrumAdemia: An Agile Guide for Doctoral Research...
What are the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the dynamics of violence during and after civil wars? The project analyses the pandemic-related reconfiguration of social and political orders in a comparative study of Syria and Colombia at subnational levels. In this way, it will provide new knowledge on violence dynamics in two of the most complex conflicts today and be able to suggest crucial lessons for similar (post-)war contexts in other parts of the world. Volkswagen Foundation, 2021-2022
Peace and conflict transformation are core topics in the social sciences and humanities. At the same time, theories, methods and data are shaped to an overwhelming degree by the experience of Western industrial democracies or the ‘objects’ of their intervention. This project provides a change in perspective by including the multifaceted experiences of the Global South and applying a global approach to peace. GIGA, LSE, CCDP, University of Marburg, 2016-2019
COVID-19 and the Dynamics of (Post-)War Violence in Colombia
2022 Latin American Peace Science Society (LAPSS) Conference, Online Event
Organisers: Latin American Peace Science Society
Dr. Viviana García Pinzón (Speaker), Prof. Dr. Sabine Kurtenbach (Speaker)
Sovereignty and hybrid governance in the urban peripheries of Latin America
2nd Graduate Workshop of the Graduate School for East and Southeast European Studies at the University Regensburg in cooperation with the Leibniz Science Campus Europe and America in the Modern World , Regensburg
Dr. Viviana García Pinzón (Speaker)
