Team

Marta Puxan Oliva (PhD in Humanities, UPF, 2010) is a distinguished researcher in the Department of Catalan Philology and General Linguistics at the Universitat de les Illes Balears. She has worked as a lecturer in comparative, English and Catalan literature at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Harvard University, the Universitat de Barcelona and the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya. She was formerly a post-doctoral researcher with a Marie Sklodowska Curie grant from the European Commission in the Department of Comparative Literature at Harvard University (2012-2015), the Department of Romance Languages at the University of Barcelona (2015-2017) and on the Humanities Programme at the Open University of Catalonia (2017-2020).

Marta is an expert in narrative studies, race studies, global literary studies and ecocriticism. Her publications include the book Narrative Reliability, Racial Conflicts and Ideology in the Modern Novel (Routledge 2019), and alongside Annalisa Mirizio, she has jointly edited the special issue on ‘Rethinking World Literary Studies in Latin American and Spanish Contexts’ in the Journal of World Literature (2017), as well as the special issue on ‘Historicizing the Global: An Interdisciplinary Perspective’ in the Journal of Global History (2019), alongside Neus Rotger and Diana Roig-Sanz. She has published articles on her specialities in different journals including Poetics Today, English Studies, Letral, Journal of Narrative Theory and Els marges, as well as book chapters in The Routledge Companion to Crime Fiction and The Routledge Handbook of Crime Fiction and Ecology.

She is the PI for the ERC Consolidator Grant project: ‘Ocean Crime Narratives: A Polyhedral Assessment of Hegemonic Discourse on Environmental Crime and Harm at Sea (1982-present) – OCN.’ The project works on literary, film and expert ocean narratives, especially contemporary narratives on environmental crime at sea from an interdisciplinary perspective.

She is also joint PI with Neus Rotger of the R&D project, funded by the Spanish Government: ‘The Novel as Global Form. Poetic Challenges and Cross-border Literary Circulation’ (2021-24, PID2020-118610GA-I00). This study looks at the global novel from an intersectional perspective between poetics and literary circulation.

Ignacio Martínez Armas graduated in Audiovisual Communication and Business Administration and Management from the Rey Juan Carlos University in 2021. He was then awarded a Master’s Degree in Creative Writing from the Complutense University of Madrid in 2022. Ignacio is currently studying for a PhD in Film Studies on the ERC CoG Ocean Crime Narratives project.

He is a specialist in the work and life of Jean Painlevé (1902 – 1989), a nature documentarian linked to the avant-garde movement, has published two articles, including Jean Painlevé as the reference to develop a surrealist nature documentary (2023), and taken part in two international conferences, in 2021 and 2023. Moreover, he has researched the literary field linked to animal portrayal in poetry (2022). He has also worked with the Good Energies Alliance Ireland NGO as an activist, researcher and writer, including development work on a biodiversity project in Ballinagleragh, Co. Leitrim (2022-23).

He was a finalist in the national award for children’s poetry (2017) and an international finalist for the call: Projecting Change: Audiovisual Creation and Ecosocial Crisis (2022).

Laia Ventayol-García is a researcher, visual artist and lecturer. She is currently a PhD candidate in Comparative Literature as part of the project Ocean Crime Narratives (ERC Consolidator Grant) at the University of the Balearic Islands, IP Marta Puxan-Oliva. Ventayol studied fine arts at the Universitat de Barcelona and the Akademie der Bildenden Künste Nürnberg, receiving the Meisterschülerin qualification (Prof. Heike Baranowsky). In 2021 she obtained a Master’s Degree in Literary Theory and Comparative Literature from the Universitat de Barcelona, winning the extraordinary master’s award.

Among other acknowledgements, in 2023 she received the Debütantenförderung award from the Akademie der Bildenden Künste Nürnberg, the Sant Andreu Contemporani artist residency grant and the Barcelona Crea Grant. In 2022, she was awarded with the CAC Ses Voltes Arts Visuals Palma grant for research projects, as well as with the SeMA Nanji Residency grant for international artists at the Seoul Museum of Art. In 2019, she received a grant for women equality in research, from the Bavarian Ministry of Art, Science and Research (Stipendienprogramm zur Realisierung der Chancengleichheit für Frauen in Forschung und Lehre, 2019). 

Ventayol is a formal collaborator in the LiCETC research group, linked to the Department of Catalan Philology and General Linguistics at the Universitat de les Illes Balears. She has recently participated in the XX and XIX International Conference ALEPH (2024, 2023) and the LXVIII Annual Anglo-Catalan Society’s Conference (2023). She was Lektorin in Business Spanish at the Bayreuth Universität Sprachenzentrum (2018-2020). She also worked as an Lehrbeauftragte in Catalan and Spanish language at the Friedrich Alexander Erlangen-Nuremberg Universität Sprachenzentrum (2010-2017). In constant tandem with her teaching, she works as an independent visual artist, and has participated in several exhibitions, some of them took place at Casal Solleric in Palma de Mallorca, Dilalica Barcelona, Galeria Maior in Pollença, Seoul Museum of Art Nanji Residency, Festival Loop in Barcelona, The Green Parrot Barcelona, Kunstquartier Bethanien Berlin, Wiensowsky & Harbord Berlin and CCA Andratx, etc.

Ariana graduated in humanities from the Pompeu Fabra University in 2016 and was awarded a Master’s Degree in Cultural Heritage at the University of the Balearic Islands in 2020. She is currently working towards her thesis on the PhD Programme in History, History of Art and Geography at the University of the Balearic Islands.

In recent years, she has undertaken major research and outreach work focused on fishing communities and their heritage status. Her research mainly centres around analysing gender roles within these communities based on oral history, material culture, and photographic and audiovisual heritage. These research areas have been developed internationally through a research stay at the Scottish Fisheries Museum (United Kingdom), where she played an active role in the FishNet Digitisation Project (2022). She has also been the principal investigator for two competitive regional projects funded by the Institute of Balearic Studies (2021) and the Minorcan Institute of Studies (2022), focusing on women’s roles in fishing communities in Majorca and Minorca. Moreover, she is part of the research team on the ERC project: Ocean Crime Narratives: A Polyhedral Assessment of Hegemonic Discourse on Environmental Crime and Harm at Sea (1982-present). She was recently given the City of Palma Montserrat Casas Research Award (2022) for a study on women fishmongers in Palma. She has also worked as a researcher at the Majorca Maritime Museum within the framework of the Dialogues with the Sea project (2021).

She has taken part in different national and international conferences, including the 50^th International Congress of Maritime Museums (Halifax, Canada, 2022); the 1^st Conference on Feminist Anthropology (San Sebastián, 2022); the International Conference Mermaids: (En)Gendering Maritime Labour and Business History (Ljubljana, Slovenia, 2022), and the 7^th International Conference of Anthropology AIBR (Portugal, 2021). She is currently working on different publications focusing on anthropology in fishing communities, including the article Unsustainable Practices Among Contemporary Maritime Fishing Communities of Mallorca (Balearic Islands, Spain): A Socio-Ecological and Historical Approach in the Sociologia Ruralis journal, as well as the book chapter To Sea In The Land: Fishwomen’s Social Capital In Traditional Fishing Communities In Mallorca (Spain) (in press) for Brill.

Daniel Albero Santacreu (PhD in Prehistory and Archaeology, UGR, 2011) is a senior lecturer in the Department of History and Theory of Art at the University of the Balearic Islands. He has mainly lectured here since 2011 on the degree programmes in history and primary education. Since 2015, he has also taught the ‘Archaeological and Ethnological Marine Heritage’ subject on the Master’s Degree in Cultural Heritage: Research and Management (UIB).

He is a member of the Material Culture and Archaeological Heritage Research Group (ARQUEOUIB) and has taken part as a researcher on many competitive European, national and regional R&D projects, undertaking several research stays including at the British Museum (2007); University of Ghana (2011, 2012, 2013); Department of Archaeology—University of Sheffield (2012); Ghana Museums and Monuments Board (2014), and University College London Qatar (2016). Daniel has undertaken major archaeological and ethnographic research focused on studying the practices, social agency, habitus and resilience in different periods and societies. His research has looked at different topics, such as the social role of technology, landscape construction, mobility and cultural contact. In turn, he has carried out major research and knowledge transfer duties centring on maritime, ethnological and archaeological heritage in collaboration with institutions such as the Balearic Tourism Agency.

As a result of this research work, he has published over 100 scientific publications, including chapters in the following books: Children, identity and space (Oxbow Books), The Prehistory of Iberia: Debating Early Social Stratification and the State (Routledge) and Oxford Handbook of Archaeological Ceramic Analysis (Oxford University Press). In addition, he has authored many articles for indexed journals, including the Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology, the Journal of Contemporary Archaeology or the Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences. His publications also include the book Materiality, Techniques and Society in Pottery Production (De Gruyter 2014) and jointly editing the ‘Ethno-archaeologies from Spain’ special issue for the journal Complutum (2017). Furthermore, he and Ariana Domínguez were joint authors of the article in the special issue on Multiple Dimensions of Sustainability in Rural Europe for the journal Sociologia Ruralis entitled: ‘Unsustainable Practices Among Contemporary Maritime Fishing Communities of Mallorca (Balearic Islands, Spain): A Socio-Ecological and Historical Approach.’

Esteban Morelle-Hungría is a researcher in green criminology and environmental law. He has focused on studying the anthropogenic impacts on aquatic ecosystems. He has a PhD from the University of Alicante and his thesis was entitled New Challenges in Protecting the Marine Environment. Green Reconnection: Environmental Law and Criminology for Biodiversity Conservation. Morelle-Hungría has specialised in studying environmental harm to aquatic species, with standout research on Mediterranean seagrass, illegal fishing and underwater noise. He is an honorary collaborator within different research centres (LINCC, UIB; CIBIO, UA) and a member of several associations and groups (GEPC, ESC and SEIC). His final degree project in criminology was a finalist at the 11^th Spanish Criminology Conference held at the University of Barcelona in 2016. In 2021, he was awarded a ‘Margarita Salas’ postdoctoral contract at the Universitat d’Alacant, where he remained until taking up a position as assistant lecturer with a doctoral degree in criminal law and criminology at Universitat Jaume I, where he is currently working as a lecturer. He is also an assistant professor in criminology at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya since 2019.

He has undertaken different national and international research stays, including at Centre d’Estudis de Dret Ambiental a Tarragona (CEDAT), the Institut Universitari d’Estudis Europeus at Universidade da Coruña and the University of Bergen, among others. In 2024, he won the international mobility grant “José Castillejo” by the Ministerio de Universidades, with the project entitled Análisis multinivel de la contaminación acústica subacuática de buques en el ártico. Calentamiento global, cambio climático y sus consecuencias desde la ecocriminología.