PROJECT TITLE
Critical Thinkers and the Crisis of Academic Freedom in Chiapas and Central America (1910-2024)
Institutional lead
Marisa Gisele Ruiz Trejo, Facultad de Ciencias Sociales de la Universidad Autónoma de Chiapas, México
Objective
Analyze the relationship between the siege to academic freedom and expression and the thinking practices of women researchers, writers, thinkers, activists and artists in Chiapas and Central America throughout the 20th and 21st centuries.
Expected results
To develop a broad historical and contextual understanding of how academic, intellectual and artistic rights and responsibilities have been exercised in relation to academic freedom, university autonomy and women’s freedom of expression.
To combat epistemological violence and the inclusion of alternative epistemologies, scarcely visible in the dominant academic space, by introducing new textual forms into academic prose, such as essays, poems, videos, scripts, mutable files, illustrations, audiovisual material and even performance.
Contribute to discussions and solutions to major contemporary problems such as racism, sexism, exploitation, age issues, LGBTphobia, xenophobia, migration, development, human rights, extractivism.
To provide training for people from the most diverse academic backgrounds and professional profiles to address the social problems of the realities of Chiapas, Central America and Latin America, through reflection and the production of academic research.
Project Presentation
First Virtual Meeting CLAA-CLACSO: February 19-20, 2025
Interview
1) How did you determine the focus of your research, and how does it relate to the challenges that you consider to be the most important for advancing academic freedom as a fundamental human right?
Our intersectional feminist research approach allows us to contextualize and address the academic experiences of women and gender dissidents. This approach enables us to examine the impact of various specific and differentiated mechanisms of violence that have limited their ability to exercise academic freedom as a human right. This ap-proach also enables us to highlight existing barriers and obstacles and identify recommendations for ensuring this right.
2) What impact do you think your research will have on academic freedom in the short and long term?
Our goal is to address the principles of academic freedom from an intersectional feminist perspective. With our study, we aim to raise awareness of critical thinkers’ work as part of femmealogy, a term coined by Ana Silvia Monzón to acknowledge the intellectual authority of our ancestors and contemporaries. We seek to document the challenges they have faced in exercising academic freedom and contribute to the democratization of knowledge.
3) What is the importance of taking part in this call for research proposals that is being promoted by CAFA and CLACSO?
With the support of the Coalition for Academic Freedom in the Americas (CAFA) and the Latin American Council of Social Sciences (CLACSO), we have the powerful opportunity to conduct our research and engage in mutual learning. As part of a regional research group, we focus on the study of academic freedom in different territories from different perspectives. Additionally, our team consists of three researchers from Chiapas, Gua-temala, and El Salvador who collaborate in an inter-textual and inter-disciplinary manner.
Avances
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Resultados finales
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