Pedro Cayul, PhD Candidate in Development Economics and affiliated researcher at the Centre for International Environmental Studies (CIES) is conducting research on the prominence of self-determination conflicts among indigenous groups in Latin America. His research concentrates on the case of Mapuche population in Chili as the main researcher involved in the Mapuche Data Project (www.mapuchedataproject.cl). The main goal of this project is to identify, digitize, compile, process, and harmonize quantitative information pertaining to the Mapuche people.  Pedro Cayul contributed to the creation of a database about the conflict between the Mapuche people and the Chilean State, which is named MACEDA (Mapuche-Chilean State Conflict Event Database). MACEDA covers the period 1990-2016, including more than 2,600 events collected from local media reports. This paper has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Peace Research. The working paper is accessible here. 

In his next project, Pedro Cayul investigates the political turnout of the Mapuche population in local elections between 1992 and 2008. His main finding is that political turnout increases when a Mapuche mayor is elected on a previous election. 

Pedro Cayul will submit his PhD dissertation “Self Determination Conflicts: Dynamics and Consequences” in 2022.