Regarding the student strike at the Metropolitan Autonomous University (UAM)
The members of CLACSO Working Group on Critical Studies of Rural Development —where more than 120 people from 13 Latin American countries participated, including academics from the Metropolitan Autonomous University (UAM)—, we recognize that gender-based violence, which motivated the student strike at this important university on March 10, has placed a serious problem at the center of the university and public agenda. This challenges and involves us, as higher education institutions—rural, indigenous, and urban—in our countries are not immune to it. In this context:
- We express our solidarity with the collectives and students who are fighting for effective university norms, protocols, bodies and responses to prevent, address, punish and eradicate gender-based violence and all types of violence at the UAM.
- We advocate for listening, responding, and engaging in respectful and constructive dialogue between university authorities and the students who have submitted the petitions. Therefore, we join the voices within the UAM calling for open spaces for dialogue, negotiation, and satisfactory agreements to prevent, address, punish, and eradicate such violence.
We would like to share that one effect of this strike led our Working Group to broaden our reflection on violence and focus on gender-based violence, which is of great value, and we hope that it will have a positive impact on the universities and rural communities with which we interact.
March 30th 2023
CLACSO Working Group
Critical studies of rural development
This text expresses the position of the CLACSO Working Groups Feminisms, resistance and emancipation and not necessarily that of the centers and institutions that make up the CLACSO international network, its Steering Committee or its Executive Secretariat.
