Manuela Fernández

Dr. Manuela Fernández

orcid

Research Focus & Metrics

Academic Career Length

6Years (2021-Present)

(Calculated once Scilit publication data is synced: current year − year of first publication + 1)

Representative Publications

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1 December 2023 in Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change
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AEANDREA SOLEDAD ENRIQUEZ
ANDREA SOLEDAD ENRIQUEZ
MFManuela Fernández
Manuela Fernández
MAMaría Valeria Aramayo
María Valeria Aramayo
JPJuan De Pascuale
Juan De Pascuale
POPaula Ocariz
Paula Ocariz
PTPablo Tittonell
Pablo Tittonell

14 October 2026 in Sustainability
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Journal Article
Open access
PDF file
MFManuela Fernández
Manuela Fernández
VMVerónica Andrea El Mujtar
Verónica Andrea El Mujtar
Fabio Daniel TrincoFabio Daniel Trinco
Fabio Daniel Trinco
SHSofía Hara
Sofía Hara
SLSilvana López
Silvana López
PTPablo Adrián Tittonell
Pablo Adrián Tittonell
Living Labs (LLs) are often described as top-down, formally designed innovation spaces, and literature about LL research highlights scarce reports of LLs in Latin America. However, grassroots territorial-innovation spaces exist in Latin America, and we hypothesized that some of them probably agree with the LL framework. The Comarca Andina del Paralelo 42 (CAP42), located in north Patagonia, Argentina, has already seen the emergence of agroecology and organic farming in the 1960s. We considered the CAP42 as a case study for our research. We applied a multidisciplinary approach combining socio-cultural and environmental assessment at the landscape level. We revealed that interacting institutional and cultural factors have shaped the region into a site of agroecological co-innovation, and that agroecological innovation and knowledge co-creation have emerged as bottom-up, non-formalized, long-term process. The assessment of environmental indicators (forest cover loss, land use-related changes of soil properties, etc.) provided evidence for the sustainability of the CAP42 landscape. Forest cover loss observed in the last two decades (2000–2023) was mainly linked to fires rather than agricultural expansion or intensive livestock production. The CAP42 covers the three-layer network approach and place defined in the LL framework, as it is a real-world learning and innovation space enabling multi-actor co-development of context-specific solutions, through multiple forms of knowledge co-creation that align with current LL definitions. It also illustrates that sustainable, long-lasting LLs may result from historically constructed conditions, providing key insights for the development of future LLs.