Ortiz Fellow Talk: Crafting a popular education lab in the classroom

In this talk, Pilar File-Muriel shares her experience incorporating ethnographic fieldwork in the classroom. In Fall 2020, Pilar designed Activismo Glocal, a service-learning Spanish class at UNM where students learn about service learning as a tool to apply bilingual skills and knowledge of a social justice issue in Colombia. Pilar conducted her doctoral fieldwork in Colombia between 2016 and 2017 as part of a collective of activists called Witness for Peace Solidarity Collective (WFPSC). Her research focuses on the intersection of experiences and practices of peace among Indigenous, Afro-Colombian, and Campesino communities and international activists. With the help of her interlocutors from the WFPSC and the Indigenous Regional Council of Cauca (CRIC), the Feminist and Antimilitarism Network, Coordinator of National Coca, Poppy and Marijuana Farmers, and the Humanitarian Space of Puente Nayero, her classroom was converted into a popular education lab. UNM students created thematic podcasts that can be used by the WFPSC for educational purposes about transnational human rights and peace activism.  In this talk, the instructor, students, and activist collaborators reflect on their class and engage in a dialogue about the challenges of and opportunities for opening the university classroom into a more participatory and collaborative teaching-learning experience.

Date: Wednesday 2/24/21 at 11am MT/ 12pm CT

Register in advance for this presentation:

https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJckf-ioqD8rGtCiEaZhkisXVa8BJDkzQ7wT