Roundtable: Intersections and Contradictions of Activism/Advocacy and Academia

We are pleased to invite you to the first event of the Migration & Activism Series/Forum, co-sponsored by The Cambridge Migration Society and the Centre for the Study of Global Human Movement – a roundtable discussion: “Intersections and contradictions of activism/advocacy and academia.”

This is going to be a moderated conversation with our four invited speakers, Steven Martin, Lou Elena Bouey, Erika Teichert, and Diego Azurdia, who are going to share with us their experiences of inhabiting the two spheres of engagement, academia and migration-related activism/advocacy. We will discuss the ways in which it is possible to navigate the two worlds, which often seem detached from each other. We will talk about the challenges and limitations involved in combining them, and how can the insights of the one fruitfully feed into the other. This participative sharing of experiences and thoughts will be our first step into a longer conversation, which we will develop further throughout our Migration & Activism Series. 

Time: Tuesday, 23 February, 12-1:30 pm (UK time)

Place (online, join with the link): https://meet.google.com/yoq-itto-pin

About the speakers:
Steven Martin is a member of The Centre for the Study of Global Human Movement, an Associate Fellow at The Centre for Disaster and Humanitarian Ethics, and an Associate Lecturer at Glasgow Caledonian University. Steven combines cross-disciplinary research, teaching, advocacy and activism to improve lives of disadvantaged populations.

Lou Elena Bouey is an MPhil student in Architecture and Urban Design at the University of Cambridge. Working across the fields of urbanism, architecture, and policies reform on the US-Mexico, she focuses on resiliency around the issues of climate justice and the refugee crisis, and explores new forms of urban citizenship. She is especially interested in system design, circular thinking, and community-based activism.

Erika Teichert is from Buenos Aires, Argentina. She is a final-year PhD Candidate in Latin American Studies at Cambridge. Her doctoral research explores the mobilisation of photography by human rights movements in contemporary Argentina. Beyond academia, she has contributed to the Ni una menos Argentine feminist collective in the UK, particularly advancing their support for the legal abortion bill, which just passed in December 2020.

Diego Azurdia holds a BA in Comparative Literature from Stanford University and an MA in Latin American Cultures from Columbia University. He is currently in his 3rd year of the PhD in Spanish and Latin American Studies at the University of Cambridge. Currently he is finishing his first novel. He is mostly at home under the menacing shadows of the volcanoes of his native Guatemala.

Moderator: Beja Protner

The Migration & Activism Series/Forum is co-sponsored by the Cambridge Migration Society and the Centre for the Study of Global Human Movement. This forum has been initiated and is coordinated by graduate researchers of migration, who are interested in activism. The forum aims to address various issues around activism in migration-related contexts and beyond, including the question of the relationship between activism and academia, problems addressed and faced by (migration) activists, epistemology & knowledge-production, political exile, and migrant self-organizing. We will address these topics through roundtable discussions, talks, readings, and seminars throughout the following academic terms. The group is open to all who have an interest in migration and activism, whether in research or practice.

Forum Coordinator: Beja Protner (bp424@cam.ac.uk)

We look forward to seeing you and discussing with you!