Antonia Rivas
Antonia Rivas Palma (born 1 March 1982) is a Chilean lawyer, anthropologist and university academic, affiliated with the political party Social Convergence (CS). She was a member of the Expert Commission created to draft a preliminary constitutional text during the 2023 Chilean constitutional process.
Biography
Early life and education
She was born in Santiago in 1982. She studied law at Diego Portales University, obtaining her bachelor’s degree and later qualifying as a lawyer before the Supreme Court of Chile.
In 2017 she earned a PhD in Sociocultural Anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley with the thesis Ono Tupuna, the richness of the ancestors. Multiple Landscapes Relationalities in Contemporary Indigenous Rapa Nui.
Professional career
Since 2016 she has worked as a professor in the Department of Anthropology at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, specializing in legal anthropology and indigenous peoples’ rights.
She was an advisor to the Chilean Constitutional Convention (2021–2022), collaborating with former constituent Tiare Aguilera Hey, representative of Rapa Nui.
In June 2022, she was appointed Head of the Research and Coordination Unit at the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights (Chile).
On 23 January 2023, the Chamber of Deputies of Chile confirmed her nomination, sponsored by Social Convergence, as a member of the Expert Commission for the 2023 Chilean constitutional process.