Marcela Torres Heredia is a researcher, activist, and PhD candidate in Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Vienna. Her work focuses on decoloniality, feminism, social inequality, and intersectionality, with a strong emphasis on mediation, participation, and knowledge practices.

She holds a degree in Social Sciences Education from Universidad Pedagógica Nacional in Bogotá, a Master’s in Latin American Studies from the University of Vienna, and a Master’s in Applied Knowledge Management from FH Burgenland. Across her academic work, she has critically examined unequal epistemological conditions in knowledge production and how they reproduce and deepen social inequalities.

Marcela is an ÖAW DOC-team fellow at the University of Vienna, researching the role of knowledge and epistemology between colonial reproduction and social alternatives. Her doctoral research is grounded in participatory observation and visual anthropology, focusing on Afro-Colombian women’s movements in the North Cauca region. Her work aligns closely with shrine’s interest in lived experience, power in knowledge-making, and participatory approaches to memory and narrative.