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New Patterns of Mobilization for and against Democracy

Rocío Fernández Ugalde

Contact: r.fernandez(at)uniandes.edu.co

Postdoctoral Fellow, Universidad de los Andes, Colombia

Rocío Fernández Ugalde is an interdisciplinary researcher with a background in education policy and cultural studies. Her research agenda focuses on teachers’ labour and social movements. In particular, she is interested in the processes of knowledge-making in collective organization and the possibilities for building social justice in and through education. She recently completed her PhD in Sociology of Education at the University of Cambridge, where she was part of the research hub ‘Knowledge, Politics and Power.’ In her PhD research, she drew on feminist scholarship on labour regimes, relational sociology, and historical institutionalism to examine how education policies have redefined social relations within education, teachers, and the Chilean state over time. As a Global Forum postdoctoral fellow at Universidad de los Andes, she will work on a project examining the recent cycle of teacher movements in Colombia and England (2021-2024) and how these movements inform and relate to ongoing care crises in times of authoritarian neoliberalism.

Research project

Mobilize to care and care to mobiliz: New Patterns of Teachers’ Strikes in times of Authoritarian Neoliberalism

The project addresses a major contemporary threat to democracy: the crisis of care, where essential non-market activities that sustain social bonds are jeopardized by financialized and authoritarian neoliberalism. Focusing on teachers, whose unique labor position intersects with the spheres of social reproduction and production in particular ways, this research seeks to unveil connections between state care fixes, larger reproductive/productive interplays, and democratic capacities. The research examines recent teacher mobilizations and strikes (2021-2024) in Colombia and England through process tracing, conjunctural analysis, and relational comparison, and it is organized around the following questions: How and in what ways do current cycles of teachers’ strikes relate to the state’s care fix in the context of authoritarian neoliberalism? How are these rooted in larger trajectories of the reproductive/productive interplay beyond schooling? What can be learnt from teacher movements towards reimagining societies democratic capacities? Overall, the research will provide key insights on new patterns of the dynamic between the caring dimension of democracy and capitalist regimes, as well as clear understandings on the concrete forms in which teacher strikes relate to unfolding crises and can create possibilities for defending and fostering democracy.