Research areas

Marie Kolling is researching the gendered impact of debt and how an increased reliance on credit in Latin America generates new conditions of poverty and drives gender inequality. Kolling’s research publications also concern digital finance, informal settlements and urban renewal, housing policy, communal responses to violence and insecurity and socio-economic developments in Brazil. She publishes on current affairs and politics in Brazil in newspapers and news magazines.

Marie Kolling is an anthropologist and has conducted extensive field research in impoverished communities since 2003 and most long term in Brazil, where she has conducted fieldwork since 2009. Previous research examined chronic illness among impoverished families, including a pionering study on the growing chronic disease burden in Africa.

Current research

Her current research project investigates the growing burden of debt among low-income families as a driver of inequality and economic deprivation in Latin America. The targeting of women in particular for unsecure lending is investigated through ethnographic research on women’s struggles over credit access and debt payments, as well as the financial sector’s credit assessment schemes based on algorithmic technologies. It is funded by the Independent Research Fund Denmark. 

Women, Peace and Security

Another line of research concerns the effects of Women, Peace and Security policies that builds on resolutions adopted by the UN Security Council, investigating the drafting and implementation of National Action Plans in various contexts.

Audio-visual productions

Her research explores audio-visual modes of dissemination such as a podcast on fintech and inequality in Latin America. She has previously co-produced an ethnographic podcast, Cashlessness: A Look at Life on the Margins of a Digitalizing Economy (2019) and two bonus episodes for AnthroPod, the podcast of the Society for Cultural Anthropology. As part of her research on informal settlements and eviction, she produced an ethnographic film, De Andada [Moving] (2014).