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

Dr Nathasha Fernando and Dr Adrija Dey spent time at the University of Chile in Santiago in early September, teaching, running a workshop and opening a new line of collaboration on sexual and gender-based violence in higher education.

At the University of Chile’s central campus the pair 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, designed with Dr Tiffany Page, with colleagues and students at the University of Chile, on collectively imagining what a safe and inclusive campus could look like. Fernando supported its delivery. Fernando also taught at the Facultad de Comunicaciones UC 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 podcast Sulla Razza.

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.

Photo by Elias Almaguer on Unsplash