International Speakers’ Series
Activists, advocates, action? UK academics’ perspectives on engagements with the climate crisis
Date: Tuesday, July 14th at 12:30 – 2:00 p.m.
Location: PCN 2012 6445 University Blvd
Speaker: Dr. Lorena Sanchez Tyson, School of Law and Education, University of Hertfordshire, UK
Abstract
Charlotte Nusseya and Lorena Sanchez Tysonb
a Sustainability Research Institute, School of Earth & Environment, Faculty of Environment & Society, University of Leeds, UK
b School of Law and Education, University of Hertfordshire, UK
Universities have been called upon by a range of activists and scholars to consider their position in relation to the climate crisis. This diverse set of demands is informed by critical work which questions knowledge production in relation to the crisis and asks whose voices count, troubling the binary of ‘expertise’ vs. lived experience through decolonial reflections. Our paper draws on a small-scale study within a research-intensive university in the UK to explore how those positioned as experts on climate by their institution understand their own expertise. It contributes a framing of expertise as shaped by process rather than by discipline, concerned with values of justice, but constructed at a distance from perspectives and actions constructed as too ‘political’ or ‘ideological’. We argue that depoliticised constructs of work on climate, particularly when blind to racialised inequalities, and/or disconnected from activists, students and communities at the frontline of the climate crisis risks reproducing narrow notions of expertise that fail to recognise the knowledge of lived experience and to fully engage with questions of justice.
https://researchprofiles.herts.ac.uk/en/persons/lorena-sanchez/publications/
Bio – Dr Lorena Sanchez Tyson
I am a Senior Lecturer in Education in the School of Law and Education at the University of Hertfordshire. My research sits at the intersection of education, international development, and social justice, and considers how relationships between education, inequality, and sustainability are shaped across different global contexts. I am particularly interested in how educational knowledge, policy, and practice are shaped by power, place, and history, drawing on decolonial and critical perspectives.
I have experience teaching a range of modules related to education and globalisation, gender and international development, and qualitative research methods. I currently lead and teach on the Master of Research in Education programme at UH.
I joined Hertfordshire from the University of Oxford, where I worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher on a project examining international mobility and world development. Prior to this, I was a Research Fellow and Senior Postgraduate Teaching Assistant at University College London (IOE, Faculty of Education and Society), where I contributed to research on universities and the climate crisis.
My research has been supported through a number of awards, including an Erasmus Mundus Partner Country Scholarship, the Comparative and International Education Society Outstanding Thesis Award, and a Postdoctoral Award from the Society for Latin American Studies. My publications include peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, and collaborative projects across international and comparative education in journals such as Ethics and Education, International Journal of Educational Development, and Comparative Education.
