boy singing on microphone with pop filter

KT's Projects

Explore my diverse personal and professional projects that merge concerns about social and environmental justice.

About me

Katja Winkler

Sustainability. Participation. Political ecology and resource justice

My training as an ethnologist shapes my perspective on global inequalites and governance over natural resources. I work at the intersection of sustainability, resource justice, and participatory learning. Over the past two decades, I have designed and led research, teaching, and international development initiatives across Europe and Latin America.

This page aims to guide you through my various professional and personal projects and share my learnings. I hope by doing so I'll be able to capture your interest and inspire you to reach out.

Ideas put into action

Be invited on my journey through different projects that show the effects of:

  • Over 20 years of international professional experience in Germany, Guatemala, and Mexico

  • UNESCO-awarded educational work

  • EU-funded and third-party-funded projects

  • Research, teaching, and facilitation

Things to do

Participatory Sustainability Education

Project teaching at TU Berlin

At the Technical University of Berlin, I designed and led interdisciplinary teaching and learning formats that connected energy, sustainability, and society through participatory approaches. My role combined curriculum development, project leadership, stakeholder engagement, and science communication, bringing together students, researchers, public administration, and civil society to co-create solutions for sustainable development.

The programme recently received the UNESCO "Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) 2030" award, recognizing its innovative contribution to transformative sustainability education. My role in developing the programme's concept and preparing the successful UNESCO application was key.

Energy Seminar TU Berlin

Science Communication

The Land Grabbing Podcast

Land Grabbing for Raw Material Extraction (course content)

Student´s web contributions

Hydropower—Renewable, Yet Destructive

Website that shows the downside of large hydroelectric projects (course content)

Student´s web contributions

person planting on hanged pots

Sustainable University

Hands on students´ participation in sustainable campus operations at TU Berlin

Student´s web contributions

The underside/gills of a mushroom cap.

Mycelium: Our Planet's Source of Nutrients and Building Material

Mushrooms as Building Materials for the future

Student´s web contributions

Green Burdens—Unequal Shoulders: Focus on Climate Justice

The outp of this student-project was to create an informative video on the topic

Student´s web contributions

Awards and Recognition

-for alternative project driven teaching formats-

With the National Award for Education for Sustainable Development "ESD 2030", the UNESCO Commission recognizes the programs long-standing commitment to innovative, participatory, and hands-on education.

International Development Cooperation 

From 2007 to 2019, I coordinated research and advocacy projects on land rights and resource justice at IDEAR–CONGCOOP in Guatemala as part of Bread for the World's international development cooperation programme. I coordinated interdisciplinary research supporting Indigenous organizations, farmers' associations, and civil society networks in defending land, territorial, and environmental rights. Finally I established the focus on land and territory at IDEAR.

IDEAR - CONGCOOP

Research, Advocacy and Organizational Development for Land Rights and Resource Justice in Guatemala

My work integrated qualitative research, conflict analysis, advocacy, and organizational development. I coordinated research projects, prepared cultural expert reports for legal proceedings, developed indicators to monitor collective and human rights, and translated research findings into publications and educational resources that strengthened evidence-based advocacy and political dialogue.

In parallel, I advised partner organizations on knowledge management, organizational development, and fundraising, helping to build their long-term institutional capacity. I also founded the Centro de Documentación (CENDOC) to preserve and disseminate knowledge on land rights and social movements.

The evidence generated through this work contributed to policy dialogue, United Nations shadow reporting, and legal processes supporting Indigenous territorial rights and environmental justice.

This work was made possible through close collaboration with Bread for the World, CONGCOOP Guatemala, and numerous Indigenous organizations and community authorities, including CNOC and the Indigenous authorities of Sololá and Suchitepéquez.

Impact

  • Advanced evidence-based advocacy on land and territorial rights.

  • Supported Indigenous communities in documenting and defending their rights.

  • Strengthened collaboration between civil society organizations, researchers, and international partners.

  • Contributed to knowledge and policy processes promoting environmental justice and sustainable development in Guatemala.

Selected publications for advocacy

green-leafed trees

Human Rights and the Oil Palm Industry in Guatemala

(2015)

Expert opinion for the hearing before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (co-authorship)

brown bamboo sticks on brown wooden table

Water Use by the Sugarcane Industry

(2016)

Analysis of the social and environmental impacts of agro-industrial water use.

Reports on Human Rights in Guatemala

(2017)

report presented in 2017, covers human rights developments and the implementation of UPR recommendations in Guatemala during the 2012–2016 period (co-authorship)

Science communication: documentary on Indigenous territorial rights and environmental stewardship

This didactic video is based on my book La territorialidad tzutujil frente a la expansión de la cana de azúcar. For the making of this short film I was involved in the project idea, the story board, as well as the overall production process.

What it is about: In the face of the generalized expansion of monocultures, especially the sugar industry, land for growing food is becoming increasingly scarce, giving rise to dispossession and hunger in Guatemala. The good news ist that indigenous practices for managing ancestral territories still remain to this day. They offer ways to survive and resist the corporation´s landgrab.

This material has been used as a teaching tool for adults in indigenous communities that can not read or write. It has also been used for community work with grassroots organizations and in schools. It is available in Spanisch, Maya Tzútujil and English on youtube.

A Production of CONGCOOP's Institute of Agrarian and Rural Studies IDEAR 2014.

Media Coverage

two hands reaching for a bird nest in a tree

As Biofuel Demand Grows, So Do Guatemala´s Hunger Pangs

Expert Commentary in the New York Times

This article by Elisabeth Rosenthal in the New York Times focuses on food security of the Guatemalan population in the face of sugar cane and oil palm monocultures. I was one of the interviewees on this delicate food security issue.

Teaching as a very enriching experience

Featured in: Transfer

An interview on development work in Latin America and my reinsercion in Germany after being abroad.

February edition 02.2024

"Wissensschaft, Forschung und Lehre",

(pages 4-6)

At Lake Atitlán in Guatemala

Featuring in Tagesspiegel about Mayan female weavers and their association

In the 2000´s, I was co-founder of a maya women´s association in San Juan La Laguna, Guatemala, for the traditional production of natural dyes for textiles.

water with bubbles

Whose is the water in Guatemala?

Article in mexican La Jornada del Campo by Katja Winkler

Guatemala shows a precarious scenario over water accessibility, more for its management and distribution than for scarcity. The absence of institutions and regulation, frame the current perspectives of supply and demand based on the interests of corporations.

two sailboat decors

Transnational Corporations

Article in Biodiversidad Latinoamérica by Katja Winkler

Transnational Corporations - the new plundering ships of the Indies: perspectives of the Peoples Summit

Applied anthropology and rural development projects

Building the GENES Network: Gender and Sustainable Energy in Central America

As Project Lead at Fundación Solar in Guatemala, I initiated and coordinated the GENES (Gender and Energy) network, bringing together organizations from seven Central American countries to strengthen gender-responsive approaches to sustainable energy and rural development: Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama.

Supported by Winrock International, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), The World Bank through its energy assitance program ESMAP, the network fostered knowledge exchange, regional cooperation, and capacity building among civil society organizations working at the intersection of gender, energy access, and community development.

Since the beginning I established a cooperation to ENERGIA, an international network operating largely across Africa and Asia. It champions women's economic empowerment and inclusive energy access, functioning as a global change agent for sustainable energy transitions.

This experience laid the foundation for my long-standing commitment to participatory approaches, international cooperation, and community-centred sustainable development.

IMPACT

  • Advocacy for women´s access to energy in rural areas or Guatemala at the US-World Bank financed energy summit Village Power 2000

  • Organizational information exchange

  • Grants and funding

Media coverage of the central american GENES Network

  • Newsletter for INFORSE International Network for Sustainable Energy. No. 32, February 2001

  • Energía News, Newsletter of the Network for Women and Sustainable Energy,Vol. 3, Issue 1, March 2000

  • Energía News, Newsletter of the Network for Women and Sustainable Energy, Vol. 3, Issue 2, June 2000

  • Continuity over time

Establishing community associations

Alongside the regional network, I facilitated participatory community initiatives that promoted cultural heritage, women's economic participation, and the preservation of traditional knowledge, including a community museum and the co-founding of a Maya women's association for the production of natural textile dyes.
San Juan La Laguna-museo a cielo abierto

Participatory projects with mayan communities of Atitlán

Asociation Rey Tepepul

Community museum with the Maya Tzútujil community in Santiago Atitlán

As part of various projects with the communities at Lake Atitlán I supported a community museum initiative with the Maya Tz’utujil community in Santiago Atitlán that promoted cultural heritage, local participation, and intergenerational knowledge transfer.

Asociation Lema´

Women weavers asociation for the traditional production of natural dyes

As part of a study on the traditional use and management of natural resources by the Tzútujil Maya people of Lake Atitlán, a group of women who produce natural dyes participated in the research. I had the honor of co-founding their association: LEMA´.

© Foto: Asociation Lemá on Facebook

Please check out their beautiful work on social media (below)

Frequent reflections

There is no easy answer to the complex dynamic of the global south and the global north and its inequalities. These express themselves economically and also through environmental injustices that lead to a vicious cycle of environmental degradation.

It doesn´t need to be that way. System change is inescapable. Meanwhile, efforts can be made supporting local resource management organization initiatives. Other options are raising awareness by providing information and support so that people empower themselves. And let´s not forget to check our personal level of consumption. Keeping the balance contains great power!

Look for (web) contributions about environmental and resource justice and share, get in touch, speak up, go to your local government representatives and ask for regulation changes concerning corporations´damage.

Do we know anything about their production processes or the value chain they are part of? Are people and other living creatures being harmed by our consumption? it is worth finding out....

I see the human being as one more species in the planetary ecosystem. Each of the species has its key importance for the overall flow. Human existence is intimately intertwined with the environment and depends on it. Even though interesting new forms of existance are currently being developed in biotechnology, people still depend on ecosystems for their livelihood. The more we know and value this interaction with our natural environment, the more prepared we will be to survive as a species. It is here where millenary cultures can teach us and give us a guideline.

Culture provides the lens for how people perceive the world. Thus, every cultural expression and longing is a key to participation and share. So are the various forms of local organization around a resource and around a territory.

As experienced by many local indigenous populations, as well as established by extensive studies, environmental health is the result of collective action. Communally managed agriculture, forests and water bodies generally persist over time, as long as rules and management rights are in place.

Let´s dive into this cuestion by finding out what indigenous people´s organizations say about how to manage and administer their own lands and territories.

Build collective dreams.