Watch “CLAREC in Mexico City: insights from the World Social Forum 2022 and the CLACSO 2022 Conference” – an informal conversation with CLAREC members Rocío Fernández and Alexandre Trindade about two relevant events that took place in Mexico City in 2022.
Watch all the powerful presentations on #inclusiveeducation in Latin America at the CLAREC Seminar “Thinking critically about inclusive education in Latin America: Disability inclusion in Colombia” with CLAREC member Dr. Julia Hayes.
Want to join the “bell hooks Reading Group” supported by CLAREC and Universidade Emancipa? The dialogues are in Portuguese or Spanish and take place every fortnight on Fridays. For more information, please visit: bit.ly/bell_grupo

The Cambridge Latin American Research in Education Collective (CLAREC) aims to constitute a space for Latin American perspectives that brings together researchers working on Latin American contexts and all those interested in hearing more about it. It aims to make visible the region’s knowledge production and current debates linked to education research towards the diversification and decolonisation of academia.
CLAREC, November 16, 2020
Our Manifesto
[en español]— [em português]
The foundations and functioning of the current global education system lie in northern and western countries’ predominance, being these located at the top while some are at the bottom. Latin American ideas, alongside other southern perspectives, are not part of the hegemonic curriculum that top universities together with the entire higher education system reproduce. Latin American authors and epistemologies are rarely mentioned in these programs and tend to be overlooked or considered as mere distant research backgrounds.
In this context, the Cambridge Latin American Research in Education Collective (CLAREC) aims to constitute a space for Latin American perspectives towards a diversification and decolonisation of academia within the Faculty of Education and beyond; to promote dialogue and collaboration around knowledge development of regional interest in the field of educational research, as well as to democratize access to knowledge produced in this very privileged and elitist place.
This initiative was inspired by the common concern which we, as Latin American students and allies at the University of Cambridge, shared during our academic journey: the need for representation and legitimation, and opportunity to make visible knowledge, ideas, and current debates within the Latin American context. It is, at the same time, an opportunity for bringing together researchers working on Latin American contexts, and for opening it up for anyone who is interested in participating or simply hearing more about it.
See on the map below where some of our members are from or their research regions in Latin America.
Watch the panel and discussion of the thought-provoking event “The role of education in the fake news era” organised by CLAREC at the Faculty of Education
Click below to watch our past CLAREC Whereabouts Seminars.
Want to join CLAREC or know what is going on? Follow us on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook
We are extremely grateful to the Faculty’s community and all our partners for embracing the CLAREC project “Paulo Freire 100th Anniversary: Celebrating his legacy in education” by collaborating and supporting us in every step of this two-week journey of celebration of Freire’s legacy. Having made it possible for us to install a Freire sculpture at the University of Cambridge is a milestone that will surely inspire others to go further in the dream of making education a viable means of dialogue, love and social transformation. The message published by the Faculty makes us feel more motivated to follow our dreams for a more inclusive, emancipated, and transformative Education. Let us listen to Freire’s call to create a safe space to foster dialogue and together aim for Liberation.
CLAREC, 2021







- Paulo Freire’s 100th Birthday: Celebrating his legacy in educationby Paula Teixeira de Castro and Sebastián Ansaldo Paulo Freire is currently being celebrated for his 100th Anniversary, and the Pedagogy of the Oppressed has now more than fifty years since its original release. Considering that half a century has passed, his theory and concepts still retain a profound influence and global impact. In 2016, anContinue reading “Paulo Freire’s 100th Birthday: Celebrating his legacy in education”
- On digital teaching and the neoliberal machineOriginally posted on The post-pandemic university:
Espen Hektoen This is part of a special collection celebrating the?centenary of Paulo Freire’s birth. Paulo Freire‘s conscientization is becoming even more important in an age where discourses about students as consumers dominates pedagogical paradigms, and social consequences, as Henry Giroux points to, are blanketed by notions of pedagogical… - Challenging non-democracy through participation: Can the classroom be a place of resistance?Originally posted on The post-pandemic university:
Gaston Bacquet This is part of a special collection celebrating the?centenary of Paulo Freire’s birth. Almost a century ago, when arguing for what he believed to be the need for democratic participation within learning spaces, John Dewey stated that democracy in the way he envisioned is: “…more than a… - ‘Education is freedom’ – turning the rhetoric of inclusion into actionOriginally posted on The post-pandemic university:
Stephen Thompson This is part of a special collection celebrating the?centenary of Paulo Freire’s birth. Paulo Freire is often quoted as saying education is freedom. Education in general has changed drastically in the 100 years since he was born, yet questions remain as to whether these changes are moving… - Classrooms as a space for imagination and hopeOriginally posted on The post-pandemic university:
Patric Wallin This is part of a special collection celebrating the centenary of Paulo Freire’s birth. Where do we go from here? From a situation where students shop courses, teachers measure satisfaction, and everyone complains about everything. From universities that proclaim that they are at the forefront of working… - Call for Blog Posts: Paulo Freire’s 100th Anniversary, organised by CLARECOriginally posted on The post-pandemic university:
This year marks the centenary of the birth of one of the greatest thinkers in education: Paulo Freire. Paulo Freire’s work has globally influenced people working in education, community development, community health, communications, and many other fields. In particular, his best-known book Pedagogy of the Oppressed is considered to… - Autism and Culture: Shaping autism research based on experiences with the autistic communities in Mexico and the UKAna Laura Trigo Clapés is a PhD student in the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge (CLAREC member) This post was originally published at FERSA University of Cambridge Blog This piece is part of the Autism and Culture series, in which researchers at the Faculty of Education carrying out studies relating to autism across the globe reflectContinue reading “Autism and Culture: Shaping autism research based on experiences with the autistic communities in Mexico and the UK”
- CLAREC – The new Cambridge Latin American Research in Education CollectiveThis post was originally published at Faculty of Education webpage. Just a few months after its official formation, Cambridge’s new Latin American Research in Education Collective (CLAREC) is attracting widespread interest and engagement – and not just from within Cambridge. Through a thriving programme of talks, research seminars and a reading group, the collective aimsContinue reading “CLAREC – The new Cambridge Latin American Research in Education Collective”
- The functions of Education and reflections on the role of researchers engaged in an academic collectiveAlexandre da Trindade, Second-Year PhD Student, Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge (CLAREC member) This post was originally published at ESRC DTP Cambridge webpage. In October 2020, a group of PhD students from the Faculty of Education at the University of Cambridge founded the Cambridge Latin American Research in Education Collective (CLAREC) aiming to makeContinue reading “The functions of Education and reflections on the role of researchers engaged in an academic collective”
- Carving space for multiple knowledges in HE
Consuelo Béjares, Ph.D. Student, Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge
Becoming a doctoral student at Cambridge University means entering a different world for most Latin Americans. Even if you were privileged enough back home to be able to be accepted in Cambridge and secure funding, the level of privilege, wealth, and intellectual elitism that we confront here was unknown for most of us. This strikes me from the first moment in the form of feeling out of place — not intelligent enough, not well-read enough, not confident enough, not very “Cambridge” in sum.
“The Decolonial Epistemic Turn and The Idea of Latin America – A conversation with Prof. Walter Mignolo”.
The Cambridge Latin American Research in Education Collective, with the support of the Centre of Latin American Studies (CLAS) and the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, presents a conversation with Prof. Walter Mignolo, William Hane Wannamaker Distinguished Professor of Romance Studies at Duke University, and a key thinker of the decolonial project. The conversation focus on Prof. Mignolo’s perspective of the invention of Latin America and the possibilities of the decolonial epistemic turn in the present. You can watch below this conversation that took place on April 26, 2021. See the Q&A and chat of this event here.