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Woman smiling among trees, wearing a striped Pancho
Lecturer

Clelia O. Rodríguez

Dr.
(She/Her)
Department of Curriculum, Teaching & Learning
Curriculum and Pedagogy
Contact info

Biography

Dr. Clelia O. Rodríguez is a global scholar, speaker, author, mom and auntie born and raised in the ancestral lands of the Lenka Peoples, currently teaching in the Department of Curriculum, Teaching and Learning, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (СƵ). She earned her MA and PhD from the University of Toronto. She is the 2022 ACPA Latinx Network Community Advancement Service Award for her support and encouragement towards the needs of Latinx students and professionals in higher education and has been nominated for awards in Excellency in teaching at СƵ. She spent three years traveling the world as a Professor of Human Rights in a Study Abroad program in the United States, Nepal, Jordan, and Chile. Prior to that she was an Assistant Professor at the University of Ghana. She has done research archival work on colonialism in Spain, Cuba, El Salvador, Mexico and Equatorial Guinea. As a Policy Gender Advisor, she has worked in Cuba, Bolivia, and Kenya, most recently. She is the founder of SEEDS for Change, a learning transnational collective that brings together Black, Indigenous and people from the Global Majority to co-create land-based and Indigenous ways of knowing. She is the author of Decolonizing Academia: Poverty, Pain and Oppression. Her work has been published in the Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy, in the Journal of Popular Education, Critical Pedagogy and Militant Research in Chile, the Black Youth Project, Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in the South, Radical Teacher: A Socialist, Feminist, and Anti-Racist Journal on the Theory and Practice of Teaching, Postcolonial Studies, Revista Iberoamericana, Diaspora, Indigenous, and Minority Education and the Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies.

Academic Positions

  • Lecturer
    University of Toronto/СƵ, CTL, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Jan 2020 - Present
  • Associate Professor
    Univesity of Toronto/СƵ, Social and Justice Education, Toronto, Ontario, Canada,
  • Visiting Assistant Professor
    Western University, Modern Languages and Literatures, London, Ontario, Canada, Aug 2018 - Present
  • Instructor
    University of Michigan, Romance Languages and Literatures, Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States, Aug 2017 - Aug 2017
  • Professor
    School of International Training, , United States, Jan 2014 - Jun 2016

Degrees

  • PhD, Cultural/Hispanic Studies/Gender
    University of Toronto,

    Toronto ON
    Canada
  • MA, Cultural/Hispanic Studies/Philosophy
    University of Toronto,

    Toronto ON
    Canada
  • BA (Specialized Honours)
    York University,

    Toronto ON
    Canada

Scholarly & Creative Works

  • Who Are You Without Colonialism?: Pegagogies of Liberation and Radical Imagi(N)nation
    2023, Information Age Publishing
    Clelia O. Rodríguez, Josephine Gabi
  • Decolonizing Academia: Poverty, Oppression, and Pain
    2018, Fernwood Publishing
    Clelia O. Rodgríguez
  • When Aunties Speak: Listening Matters!
    2023, Critical Perspectives on White Supremacy and Racism in Canadian Education: Dispatches from the Field (A. Kempf and H. Watts Eds)
    Clelia Rodríguez
  • The Anatomy of One Size Fits All
    2023, Sustainability Challenges in the Fashion Industry: Civilization, Decolonization, Cultural Legacy, and Transitions (MA Gardetti and RP Larios-Francias Eds)
    Clelia Rodríguez
  • Untitled
    2020, Gendering Globalization, Globalizing Gender: Post-Colonial Perspectives (G. Caliskan ed)
    Clelia Rodríguez
  • The Path of the Snail
    2022, Hostos Review/Revista Hostosiana
    Clelia Rodríguez
  • Fui, soy, seré: (Mal)nacida. (Mal)hablada. (Mal)educada. (Mal)aventurada
    2021, Frontiers: A Journal of Women's Studies
    Clelia Rodríguez
  • Pedagogies Under the Microscope
    2021, Diaspora, Indigenous, and Minority Education Journal
    Clelia Rodríguez
  • On Radical Love
    2020, Overland
    Clelia Rodríguez
  • The Poetics of One's Testimony
    2022, Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy
    Clelia Rodríguez
  • Untitled XI
    2019, Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in the South
    Clelia Rodríguez
  • Cuerpos indígenas en una ciudad cualquiera: ¿Quién habla? ¿Quién escucha?.
    2019, Trenzar. Revista de Educación Popular, Pedagogía Crítica e Investigación Militante
    Clelia Rodríguez
  • The #Shithole Syllabus: The Politics of Undoing History
    2018, Radical Teacher: A Socialist, Feminist, and Anti-Racist Journal of the Theory and Practice of Teaching
    Clelia Rodríguez
  • Reconfiguring Historical Colonial Identity: A Cartographic Approach to El Párroco de Niefang by Joaquín Mbomio Bacheng"
    2014, Postcolonial Studies
    Clelia Rodríguez
  • A Nnanga, mi vieja amiga lástima que no sepa leer
    2014, Revista Iberoamericana
    Clelia Rodríguez
  • Cuban Women Struggle with Gendered Health Issues
    2003, Women & Environments
    Clelia Rodríguez
  • Playing with Cages, #4506, and No me de la nana
    2019, North Dakota Quarterly
    Clelia Rodríguez
  • Liberals use "unity" to Systematically Silence Women of Colour. It's Time to be Divisive.
    The Black Youth Project
    Clelia Rodríguez
  • Help Wanted
    2018, Latino Rebels
    Clelia Rodríguez
  • How Academia Uses Poverty, Oppression, and Pain for Intellectual Maturbation
    2017, RaceBaitR
    Clelia Rodríguez
  • Academic Rawness and the Colonized Coffee that Fuels it
    2017, RaceBaitR
    Clelia Rodríguez

Research Interests

- Decolonizing approaches to teaching and learning
- Pedagogies of Liberation 
- Popular Education and Cultural Studies in Education
- Ancestral-based knowledge
- Cultural-informed curriculum
- Land-based Education
- Gender/Feminist Studies

Teaching Interests

As educators-in-the-making, we have a lifelong journey to embrace, share and disseminate teaching values based on the Anishinaabe peoples: Courage, Bravery, Love, Respect, Knowledge, Wisdom, and Truth. I am a daughter of the corn, hija del maíz as we say in El Salvador. The pedagogies of the land is what sustains me in my role as a learner-teacher.
The passing of intergenerational teachings through storytelling sustains my community in the ongoing struggle against colonialism. I manifest from day one my intentions based on indigenous-informed values and actions I have received from my grandparents and great-grandparents. I share them with you today: The land does not need saving. She needs respect. In my teachings, I foster courage and bravery to collectively imagine and co-create pedagogies of liberation, showing compassion as we crawl in patience. 

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