Crosscutting research interests: The function of law and legal reasoning The law and function of international institutions (both political organizations and judicial bodies) The role of rights in international governance Publication areas: Human rights Social protection Judicial review International organizations / institutions Law and governance of the European Union Editor in Chief of Åbo Akademi Institute for Human Rights Working Paper Series

Projects

Changing Leadership

Nathaly Pinto is a doctoral researcher at Aalto University, Finland, and an Adjunct Professor at the Pontificia Universidad Católica in Ecuador. With design training in Ecuador and the Netherlands, she has spent nearly a decade collaborating on projects with popular classes and indigenous peoples, partnering with civil society organizations in Ecuador and Andean South America. Her research centers on participatory design from the Global South, popular communication, and design for social change. Currently, Nathaly's focus lies in closely working with indigenous organizations and youth in the Ecuadorian Amazon, conducting research and co-designing visual devices to support political-educational spaces for dialogue, deliberation, and learning.

My research has two main streams, both of which focus on international development and poverty alleviation in sub-Saharan Africa. First, I take a qualitative approach to understanding the “natural” course of entrepreneurship in Ghana; that is, how entrepreneurship happens in the absence of international development efforts. This research stream grew out of my frustration with seeing development organizations consistently teaching entrepreneurship in sub-Saharan Africa in much the same way it is taught in Canada, or Finland. My second research stream focuses on collaboratively working with international development organizations to solve their pressing challenges. This generally involves using randomized field experiments to test designed solutions under real-world characteristics. The goal here is to bridge the gap between producing work that is theoretically interesting, and producing work that is practically important. Two ongoing projects of this nature are happening in Ghana and Tanzania.