Dr Gwen Burnyeat is a political anthropologist studying conflict, politics and peacebuilding in Colombia and Britain. She is Principal Investigator of the ERC-selected/UKRI-funded project Stories of Divided Politics: Polarisation and Bridgebuilding in Colombia and Britain, an ethnographic study of the individuals and organisations who build bridges across political divides. The project brings together perspectives on polarisation and peacebuilding to develop a theory of bridgebuilding as a relational infrastructure that sustains coexistence amid disagreement and friction.

Dr Burnyeat has worked in Colombia for over sixteen years as both a scholar and peacebuilding practitioner. She has written two books based on this research. The first, Chocolate, Politics and Peace-Building: An Ethnography of the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó, Colombia (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018; Spanish translation Editorial del Rosario, 2022), is accompanied by the award-winning ethnographic documentary Chocolate of Peace (2016). The second, The Face of Peace: Government Pedagogy amid Disinformation in Colombia (University of Chicago Press, 2022; Spanish translation Editorial del Rosario, 2024), won the 2023 Public Anthropologist Award.

Her practitioner experience includes work in human rights, dialogue facilitation and transitional justice. She has worked with the International Centre for Transitional Justice and Peace Brigades International, and is a member of Rodeemos el Diálogo (Embrace Dialogue). Before joining ODID, she was Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of Edinburgh.

Dr Burnyeat is on research leave for academic year 2026–27 and will begin teaching on the MPhil in Development Studies in Michaelmas Term 2027.

Find out more about Dr Burnyeat here: https://www.gwenburnyeat.com/