Eduardo Villavicencio-PInto

Eduardo Villavicencio-Pinto is a Lecturer in Law at the University of Kent School of Law. He holds a PhD in Law from the University of Kent, where his doctoral research examined the transformation of rural property regimes under climate change in Chile. He also holds a Master of Sociology from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and a Master of Public Policy from Universidad Diego Portales.

Before joining Kent as a member of the academic staff, Eduardo developed an extensive career bridging scholarship and practice in the field of land governance and rural development. As a Land Consultant for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), he contributed to land tenure research, policy analysis, and the development of governance frameworks for land access reconfiguration in Latin America. As a Project Advisor at PROCASUR, a Chilean non-governmental organisation specialising in rural development and knowledge management, he has led initiatives on land access for rural youth and indigenous communities, land information systems, and participatory methodologies across Latin America and Africa, working in close collaboration with the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the International Land Coalition (ILC).

Eduardo has presented his research at major international forums, including the World Bank Land Conference in Washington DC, Harvard Law School’s Global Scholar Academy, the Socio-Legal Studies Association Annual Conference, and the Royal Geographical Society International Conference. His work has been published in leading peer-reviewed journals, including Land Use Policy and the Journal of Law, Property and Society.

He is a member of the Society for Latin American Studies (SLAS) and the Association for Law, Property and Society (ALPS), and serves on the editorial board of the Revista de Historia Agraria de América Latina.

Eduardo’s research examines the relationship between property regimes and climate change adaptation, with particular attention to how land tenure systems shape rural livelihoods and territorial transformation. His work is situated at the intersection of critical property theory, legal geography, and socio-legal studies, drawing on interdisciplinary methods that integrate spatial analysis, Q-methodology, and qualitative inquiry.

His doctoral research investigated the future of rural private property in Chile, analysing how competing narratives of property respond to the intertwined challenges of land concentration, fragmentation, and environmental degradation. This work contributes to broader debates on how legal architectures of ownership enable or constrain climate adaptation, and how property regimes might be reconceptualised to serve ecological and social functions beyond market exchange.

Eduardo’s current research agenda extends this inquiry comparatively, exploring how property systems across Latin America mediate responses to climate vulnerability. He is particularly interested in relational approaches to property and their potential to inform legal and policy reform in contexts where conventional ownership models prove inadequate for addressing environmental crises. His engagement with scholars working across critical property theory, environmental law, and spatial justice informs a research programme attentive to both the conceptual foundations of ownership and its material consequences for communities confronting ecological precarity.

His applied research, developed through sustained collaborations with FAO and PROCASUR, focuses on land governance mechanisms, land access for marginalised rural populations, and the design of policy instruments for equitable territorial development. Eduardo has contributed technical reports and analytical frameworks adopted in multilateral settings, bridging academic inquiry with the institutional demands of international development practice.

Contract Law (2025/2026)

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Eduardo welcomes enquiries from prospective doctoral candidates interested in pursuing research at the intersection of property law, land tenure, and climate change. He is available and keen to supervise projects exploring the transformation of property regimes under environmental pressure; land tenure systems and climate adaptation, particularly in the Global South; legal geography and the spatial dimensions of ownership; relational and critical approaches to property theory; land governance, food security, and rural development policy; and the role of legal consciousness in shaping property practices and reform.