The patriarchal nature of higher education institutions has made spaces such as universities become epicenters of feminist struggle and debate in Latin America in recent years. Thanks to the work of feminist colectivas (collectives) and groups, gender-based violence (GBV) in university settings can no longer be denied. That is where this investigation appears. The project is carried out by Espacialidades Feministas [Feminist Spatialities], a research and accompaniment group founded in 2014, in collaboration with the Interdisciplinary Center for Development Studies (Cider) of the Universidad de los Andes, in Bogota, Colombia.
According to Diana Ojeda, main researcher and associate professor at Universidad de los Andes, “the title of this project is an outcry that comes from feminist colectivas in the streets. It references patriarchy and it is about the idea that it will fall because we will bring it down and tear it apart together.” This idea of bringing down the systems of oppression together is evidenced in the work of the group conducting the project: Espacialidades Feministas is a diverse and interdisciplinary group made up of academic and activist women and LGBTQ+ people committed to the building of safe and caring spaces.
It is going to fall because we’ll bring it down has the objective of researching the processes of prevention, attention, report and sanction (PARS) in four universities (two public and two private) located in Bogotá, Colombia: Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Universidad Pedagógica Nacional, Universidad de los Andes and Pontificia Universidad Javeriana. The intention behind choosing public and private universities is taking an intersectional stance to counteract the dehistoricized and apparently neutral treatment that has been given to sexual violence in university contexts, as well as the invisibility of its impacts in relation to the constructions of race, class, gender and sexuality.
To address the problem, the project has analyzed the legal and institutional framework, media coverage and salient cases in Colombia. It has also carried out ethnographic research with feminist colectivas, examining different initiatives in these spaces. The last phase of the project will focus on collective memory workshops that can give account of the lived experience and strategies of students and professors working within and beyond the university against GBV.
“This research is important because the institutional initiatives that already exist are few and are not able to deal with all the issues related to GBV. Often, these institutional initiatives end up doing two things: shielding institutions against lawsuits and projecting an image that they do care about these issues, that are mainly experienced by women and gender and sexual dissidences. What we have seen is silence and impunity. This project focuses precisely on those who do the work: feminist collectives, groups and support networks formed mainly by students”, explains Ojeda.
The research project has four main objectives: (1) identify the most recurrent forms of sexual violence and other forms of GBV in each of the universities, (2) analyze the process of formulation and implementation of existing protocols, (3) build the memory of collectives, institutions, observatories and teachers who have worked in PARS and GBV in the four universities and (4) characterize and analyze the functioning and tensions between institutional and non-institutional justice. It is going to fall because we’ll bring it down is a way of showing other routes to monitor cases. This is because, according to Ojeda, “institutional paths are not enough and, many times, they are counterproductive.” Thus, the contribution of this research is rooted not on what universities can do, but on what colectivas, students and faculty members are doing “as part of the institution, at the same time they dispute it”.
For Ojeda, “the tensions between the institutional and the non-institutional we seek to understand have to do with the long journey of Espacialidades Feministas to find ourselves in front of deeply rooted practices of silence and impunity, and of the neglect of these cases. That is why we believe that this research is important, because, in the face of impunity, silence, and the patriarchal pact that make people believe that these things do not matter, there are the colectivas and the feminist movements throughout Latin America saying very loudly that this type of violence will not be tolerated anymore.”
Photo credits: Nicole Chavarro
