Nathasha Fernando and Adrija Dey build Chilean partnerships on campus gender violence

Dr Nathasha Fernando and Dr Adrija Dey spent time at various universities in Santiago, Chile, in August and September, teaching, running a workshop, facilitating knowledge exchange, opening a new line of collaboration on sexual and gender-based violence in higher education and feminist pedagogies.

At the University of Chile’s central campus they met the institution’s Gender Equality Office to learn about its work on addressing and preventing sexual and gender-based harm, an approach Dey described as holistic and multi-pronged. Chile has legislated in this area, obliging higher education institutions to adopt policies against sexual harassment, violence and gender discrimination, which makes its universities an instructive comparator for work elsewhere.

Dey went on to deliver a workshop for The 1752 Group, co-designed with Dr Tiffany Page from UCL and Hannah McDowall from Canopy, with colleagues and students from universities across Santiago. Held at the University of Chile, the workshop focused on collectively imagining what a safe and inclusive university campus could look like. Fernando supported the delivery of the workshop.

Fernando also taught at the Facultad de Comunicaciones Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile on sociological podcasting as a form of both pedagogy and activism, hosted by Arly Faundes, drawing on her own work as co-creator of the internationally acclaimed podcast Sulla Razza. She spent time providing advice and mentorship to students who wanted to start their own podcast.

They also finalised a research partnership for an upcoming project led by Fernando, Decolonising Gender: Interventions in Theory, Pedagogy, Research and Activism, which brings together colleagues from Chile, South Africa and the UK.

The visit extends the reach of FemIDEAS, the UKRI-funded project led by Dey that develops survivor-centred, feminist, intersectional and abolitionist responses to sexual and gender-based violence in universities, and which has until now worked principally with partners in South Africa, Nigeria, Brazil and Argentina. Fernando is Lecturer in Media and Communication and Course Leader of the MA Digital Media: Storytelling and Production.