Associate Professor Sara Motta
Associate Professor
Newcastle Business School (Politics and International Relations)
- Email:sara.c.motta@newcastle.edu.au
- Phone:(02) 4921 5020
Co-creating knowledges to decolonise democracy, political subjectivity and the academy
Associate Professor Sara C. Motta is a proud mestiza salvaje of Colombia Chibcha, Polish Jewish and Celtic lineages. She develops decolonising methodologies and emancipatory pedagogies to co-create critique of the violences and exclusions of raced and feminised subjects and communities in the current realities of patriarchal capitalist-coloniality, and to co-weave other forms of decolonising and feminised forms of democracy, economy, politics, political subjectivity and education.
Associate Professor Sara C. Motta’s is committed to working with communities/kin across territories and lands to co-create knowledges that in process and outcome can contribute to decolonising, dignified, restorative and reparative pathways of well-being and justice. Her work foregrounds the epistemological wisdoms and knowledges of raced and feminised communities and subjects and centres their embodied struggles to share how these wisdoms and practices can offer pathways for re-imagining in holistic and caring ways politics, democracy, economy, and knowledge systems.
“My scholarly practice has always been about working with raced and feminised working class and ‘poor’ communities who are struggling over the right to have access and control of their lives and the decisions impacting their lives.”
Sara has found that, while not always visible and often actively invisibilised, women—grandmothers, mothers, aunties—are often at the forefront of these political and epistemological struggles. This experience is also one that Sara shares, and it was in coming together with her/these communities that they have nurtured political voice through healing justice practices.
“When it became increasingly obvious that their/our struggle was not being made visible, I began to work explicitly with the feminisation of resistance and the political, in understanding what kinds of ethics, practices and relationships were being developed. I also wanted to know how the feminisation of democracy intersects with decolonisation and motherhood.”
Decolonising an unfixable system
Sara’s work highlights a clear ongoing and systematic disparity in the voices that are represented, listened to and taken seriously across the political landscape. And when it comes to overhauling political frameworks embedded in extractivist and possessive models of social relationships, her work also suggests that more-than human-centred and inclusive forms of politics are needed if we are going to see real change take place in our lifetimes.
“How can these systems be more humanising and connecting? We are at a critical junction in the history of the West and I hope my—and our—voices can contribute to nurturing more diverse, alternative pathways for our communities.”
Sara explains that creating new forms of politics and economies would require an entirely new and holistic approach: a shifting of debates, ideas, subjects and practices about what constitutes knowledges, reason, democracy, economy and politics.
“We need new forms of democracy, new subjects and places of democracy and new ways of creating knowledge about democracy that are participatory, place-based, and involve new languages of the political—inclusive of spiritual knowledges, ancestral knowledges and cultural practices.”
Sara is committed to using research methodologies that are collaborative and co-created, that prioritise ongoing dialogue with communities. Her writings include prose, poetry, analysis and case studies, all of which tell a story and make her work more accessible. While it can sometimes be difficult for a researcher’s work to break out of academic circles and reach communities and practitioners, this is exactly what makes Sara’s work so distinct: her writing is relevant, personal and deeply meaningful for individuals and communities.
“Groups of women of colour have started reading groups about my writings, particularly my latest book, Liminal Subjects: Weaving (Our) Liberation. This book shares the stories of women in movement in the Americas, Europe and Australasia, exploring a decolonising and feminised politics of liberation. Mothers have written to me, telling me about how reading my words enabled them to find a place of recognition and safety.”
Navigating damaging power dynamics
In her research with communities that are fostering new forms of politics, economy and democracy, Sara looks at how the current organisation of power and authority is based in a particular understanding of what knowledge is, who is a holder of knowledge (or an expert) and how we create knowledge which systematically devalues and invisibilises the knowledges of raced and feminised communities. Communities’ struggles, visions and practices actively involve a clear counter-politics of knowledge. This has taken her work in a new, albeit complementary, direction.
“The trajectory of my work has moved from understanding and conceptualising new forms of politics and democracy, to exploring the politics of knowledge of movements. That is, who has a right to create knowledge, to determine what knowledge is and how can we democratise the process of knowledge creation?”
As a researcher, Sara is acutely aware of her own responsibility as a knowledge holder, and works diligently to avoid perpetuating existing, damaging conceptual frameworks which misrepresent and reproduce coloniality.
“As my research matured, I realised that many of the dominant forms of being an academic and researcher involve logics of power, in which the scholar is considered the ‘knower’ and the subject is the ‘known’.
“I began to understand how the politics of knowledge and the responsibility of ‘becoming academic’ differently were at the heart of the transformational politics that I was engaging with as a scholar—and often as a sister and community member.”
To help break down established power roles and hierarchies within research—and recognise the agency of ‘marginalised’ communities — Sara prioritises research co-creation and has co-produced concepts and practices that can be used by communities both within and outside the traditional structure of formal education.
“I don’t shy away from what is right and from researching in disruptive, innovative and challenging ways. I want to break such logics of extractivism and separation, through working with critical intimacy, decolonising critique, and decolonising participatory action research.
“I also remain deeply committed to continuing to co-produce knowledge that is transformational in process and outcome, which allows for diversity, difference and multiple ways of life to flourish.”
A voice in and of the darkness
Sara’s work is inherently personal, inspired by her own experiences of inequity, exclusion and violence as a raced woman, and the similar experiences of others. Over her career as a researcher, Sara continues to come up against institutionalised and invisible barriers that serve to remind her of the importance and continued relevance of her work.
“My research focuses on people, knowledge and ways of being and knowing that have historically been devalued, denied and denigrated—and this has meant that my entire research trajectory has been met with obstacles.
“Some people ask, “how could a brown, single mother be a scholar and a knower?” I overcome these barriers as my ancestors did: with deep connection, responsibility to my communities and finding my inner wisdoms. Through this journey of scholarship and being an activist-scholar, I have begun to find my own voice and reconnect back to ancestors and deep time.”
Just like it did for her, research embedded in responsibility to community and healing justice has enabled Sara to support the facilitation of processes for women and feminised and racialised communities to nurture their voice and inner strength, and to start a process of healing from past wounds caused by oppressive and extractive systems.
“When I look back over my work, I can see there has always been a focus on how individuals and communities can find their voice, agency and be at the centre of transforming their lives in democratic, feminising and decolonising ways.
“My hope is that this trajectory of scholarly practice contributes to subjects and communities who have felt unheard and unseen to come to a place of mutual recognition and to find tools that can be of use in their own practice of healing transformation.”
Co-creating knowledges to decolonise democracy, political subjectivity and the academy
Associate Professor Sara C. Motta is a proud mestiza salvaje of Colombia Chibcha, Polish Jewish and Celtic lineages. She develops decolonising methodologies and emancipatory pedagogies to co-create critique of the violences and exclusions of raced and feminised subjects.
Career Summary
Biography
A/Professor Sara C Motta obtained her BA in Philosophy and MSc in The Politics of Development (Latin America) from the London School of Economics and Political Science. She completed her PhD at the Department of Government, LSE under the supervision of Dr Francisco Panizza and Professor Rodney Barker in 2005. She was appointed as a three year Tutorial Fellow in Comparative and Latin American Politics in the Government Department, LSE before being appointed to lectureship in Politics at the School of Politics and International Relations, University of Nottingham in 2007. She joined the Discipline of Politics and International Relations, University of Newcastle, NSW in May 2013 as Senior Lecturer in Politics. Her scholarly practice transgresses borders- epistemological, social and spatial- as a means to co-construct with communities in struggle a critical political science practice for and of the subaltern. She has published widely in international journals including Political Studies, Latin American Perspectives, Antipode, Historical Materialism and produced a number of books including (co-edited with Alf Nilsen) Social Movements in the Global South: Dispossession, Development and Resistance (Palgrave Macmillan), ( co-edited with Mike Cole) Education and Social Change in Latin America (Palgrave Macmillan), Constructing 21st Century Socialism: The Role of Radical Education (Palgrave Macmillan; and her most recent book Liminal Subjects: Weaving (Our) Liberation, winner of the 2019 Best Feminist Theory and Gender Studies Book, the International Studies Association (ISA). She is co-founder and Latin American editor of the open access peer-reviewed journal Interface: a journal for and about social movements, http://www.interfacejournal.net/; advising editor for Latin American Perspectives, http://lap.sagepub.com/; and founding co-editor of the Journal of Critical Southern Studies. She has been involved in organising numerous projects of radical education including, the Nottingham Critical Pedagogy Project, http://nottinghamcriticalpedagogy.wordpress.com/, Nottingham Free School; the Social Science Centre and PRONERA, State University of Ceara, Brazil. She authored a radical feminist column Beautiful Transgressions for Ceasefire Magazine, http://ceasefiremagazine.co.uk/category/columns/beautiful-transgressions/ She is currently Co-Vice President of the Australian Critical Race and Whiteness Assocation and Co-Program Chair of FTGS Section of ISA.
Research Expertise
Dr Motta’s research focus is the politics of subaltern resistance, with particular reference to Latin America and the reinvention of new forms of popular politics, political subjectivities and ways of life that seek to transcend neoliberal. She has written about the Latin American Third Way Governments of the Concertacion in Chile and the Workers' Party in Brazil in relation to their role in stabilising and normalising neoliberal hegemony. A second strand of her research is focused on new forms of subaltern politics in the region, with particular reference to social movements in Argentina (unemployed movements), Venezuela (urban land movement), Brazil (Landless Workers Movement and Solidarity Economy Movement) and Colombia (Escuela Política de Mujeres Pazífica). These movements are creating new forms of politics and development which challenge conventional frames of political analysis and suggest the need for a re-think of trusted conceptual frameworks. She is thus interested in developing critical readings of political science and comparative politics through traditions on the scholarly margins including, decolonial theory, black and Chicana feminist theory, post-anarchy, open Marxism and the theories produced by communities in struggle. This research has led her to explore the politics of knowledge and the linkages between knowledge, power and exclusion, as well as the ways in which new social movements are re-inventing democratic and participatory forms of knowledge creation that challenge the academic privilege of the academy. Methodologically she is therefore interested in developing movement relevant research and participatory research methods. As part of this she is also interested in the pedagogy of dissent, and the use of popular education and critical education in and outside of the University in the forging of struggles and practices of social justice. She has published widely in internationally peer reviewed journals including Political Studies, British Journal of Politics and International Relations, Antipode, Latin American Perspectives, Latin American Politics and Society and Historical Materialism. She is co-editor of the forthcoming LAP special edition Reinventing the Lefts from Below in Latin America and co-editor (with Alf Nilsen) of Social Movements in the Global South: Dispossession, Development and Resistance (Palgrave Macmillan). She is also the co-author (with Mike Cole) of Constructing Twenty-first Century Socialism in Latin America: The Role of Radical Education, and the co-editor (also with Mike Cole) of Education and Social Change in Latin America (both Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming).
Collaborations
She is currently involved in a number of research collaborations which explore a number of intersecting processes focusing on gender, knowledge and cosmology in new forms of popular democracy and social transformation in Latin American and Europe: Profs Sandra Gadelha and Ernandi Mendes at the State University of Ceara, Brazil working with the MST (Rural Landless Movement Movement) under the umbrella project PRONERA in the State University of Ceara, Brazil. Prof Norma Bermudez at The Escuela Política de Mujeres Pazificas in Cali, Colombia. Prof Alejandrina Reyes, Centro de Experimentación para el Aprendizaje Permanente, (CEPAP), la Universidad Nacional Experimental Simón Rodríguez, (UNESR), Venezuela Dr Sarah Amsler and Prof Mike Neary, Social Science Centre, University of Lincoln, UK.
Qualifications
- PhD (Economics and Political Science), University of London
- Bachelor of Arts (Philosophy)(Honours), University of London
- Master of Science, University of London
Keywords
- (Feminist) Decoloniality
- Cosmologies of Resistance
- Critical Political Science and Comparative Politics
- Critical Social Theory
- Critique of Political Science/Comparative Politics
- Feminism of the 21st Century
- Healing as Emancipation
- Latin American Politics and Society
- Pedagogies of Resistance and Transformation
- Politics in the Global South
- Research Methodology
- Social Movements
- Subaltern politics in the Global South and Latin America
Languages
- Portuguese (Fluent)
- Spanish (Fluent)
Fields of Research
Code | Description | Percentage |
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440802 | Citizenship | 33 |
440806 | Gender and politics | 34 |
451904 | Global Indigenous studies peoples, society and community | 33 |
Professional Experience
UON Appointment
Title | Organisation / Department |
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Associate Professor | University of Newcastle Newcastle Business School Australia |
Publications
For publications that are currently unpublished or in-press, details are shown in italics.
Book (12 outputs)
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2021 |
Hosseini Faradonbeh SA, Goodman J, Motta S, Gills BK, The Routledge Handbook of Transformative Global Studies, Routledge, London, 568 (2021)
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2019 |
Motta S, Jose J, Reoccupying the Political
Transforming and Transgressing Political Science,, Routledge, London New York, 110 (2019)
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2019 |
Motta S, Jose J, Reoccupying the Political
Transforming and Transgressing Political Science,, Routledge, London New York, 110 (2019)
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2018 | Motta SC, Liminal Subjects: Weaving (Our) Liberation, Rowman and Littlefield International, Lanham, Maryland, 235 (2018) [A1] | Nova | |||
2014 | Motta SC, Cole M, Cole M, Constructing 21st Century Socialism in Latin America: The Role of Radical Education, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 259 (2014) [A1] | Nova | |||
2013 | Motta SC, Cole M, Education and Social Change in the Americas, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 308 (2013) [A3] | ||||
2013 | Motta SC, Cole M, Education and Social Change in the Americas, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 308 (2013) [A3] | ||||
Show 9 more books |
Chapter (25 outputs)
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2022 |
Motta SC, Gonzalez Torres Y, 'Popular sovereignty and (Non)recognition in Venezuela: On the coming into political being of el Pueblo ', The Palgrave Handbook of Populism, Springer Nature, Cham, Switzerland 303-318 (2022) [B1]
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2022 |
Motta S, 'Weaving Enfleshed Citizenship (M)otherwise', Mothering Performance: Maternal Action, Routledge, UK 185-203 (2022) [B1]
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2021 | Motta S, 'Territories of Decolonising Feminist/ised Struggles', The Routledge Handbook of Transformative Global Studies, Routledge, Abingdon, Ox 472-485 (2021) [B1] | Nova | ||||||
2021 | Motta S, 'Territories of Decolonising Feminist/ised Struggles', The Routledge Handbook of Transformative Global Studies, Routledge, Abingdon, Ox 472-485 (2021) [B1] | Nova | ||||||
2020 |
Motta S, 'Speaking from the Margins of Motherhood: A Politics (M)otherwise', Troubling Motherhood: Maternality in Global Politics, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK 273-290 (2020) [B1]
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2020 |
Tsukamoto S, Motta SC, 'The Women s Active Museum on War and Peace: Pedagogies of Possibility of Social and Historical Justice for Comfort Women ', Feminist Critique and the Museum: Educating for a Critical Consciousness, Brill, Leiden, Netherlands 156-176 (2020) [B1]
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2020 |
Hosseini Faradonbeh SA, Goodman J, Motta SC, Gills BK, 'Towards New Agendas for Transformative Global Studies: An Introduction', The Routledge Handbook of Transformative Global Studies, Routledge, Abingdon, UK 1-10 (2020) [B1]
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2020 |
Motta S, 'A Presence (M)otherwise', Critical Methods for the Study of World Politics. Creativity and Transformation, Routledge, Abingdon, Ox 143-147 (2020) [B1]
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2020 |
Hosseini Faradonbeh SA, Goodman J, Motta SC, Gills BK, 'Towards New Agendas for Transformative Global Studies: An Introduction', The Routledge Handbook of Transformative Global Studies, Routledge, Abingdon, UK 1-10 (2020) [B1]
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2018 |
Motta SC, 'Feminising and Decolonising Higher Education: Pedagogies of Dignity in Colombia and Australia', Decolonization and Feminisms in Global Teaching and Learning, Routledge, Abingdon, Oxon (2018) [B1]
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2017 | Motta SC, 'Mass Intellectuality from the Margins', Mass Intellectuality and Democratic Leadership in Higher Education, Bloomsbury Publishing, London 185-197 (2017) [B1] | Nova | ||||||
2016 |
Motta SC, 'Decolonsing Critique: From Prophetic Negation to Prefigurative Affirmation', Social Sciences for an 'Other' Politics: Women Theorising without Parachutes, Palgrave Macmillan, London/New York 33-48 (2016) [B1]
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2015 | Motta SC, Arashiro Z, 'Becoming woman: On exile and belonging to the borderlands', Women in academia crossing North South borders: Gender, race, and displacement, Lexington Books, London 89-116 (2015) [B1] | Nova | ||||||
2015 |
Motta SC, '21st Century Emancipation: Pedagogies in and from the Margins', Power and Education: Contexts of Oppression and Opportunity, Palgrave Macmillian, Basingstoke, UK 169-193 (2015) [B1]
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2013 | Motta SC, 'Introduction: Exploring the Role of Education and the Pedagogical in Pathways to 21st Century Socialism', Education and Social Change in Latin America, Palgrave Macmillan, New York and London 1-16 (2013) [B1] | Nova | ||||||
2013 | Motta SC, 'On the Pedagogical Turn in Latin America', Education and Social Change in Latin America, Palgrave Macmillan, New York 53-70 (2013) [B1] | Nova | ||||||
2013 |
Motta SC, 'Pedagogies of Possibility In, Against and Beyond the Imperial Patriarchal Subjectivities of Higher Education', Acts of Knowing In, Against and Beyond the Neoliberal University, Bloomsbury Academic, London 85-124 (2013) [B1]
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Show 22 more chapters |
Journal article (42 outputs)
Year | Citation | Altmetrics | Link | ||||||||
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2023 |
Motta S, 'The Epistemological Intimacies of the Urban Frontier: Mangrove Swamps, Possessive (Non)Belonging and Kinship (M)otherwise', Globalizations, 20 208-224 (2023) [C1]
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2023 |
Motta SC, Bermudez Gomez NL, Miranda EF, 'An erotic and poetic political subjectivity of the sacred (en)flesh(ed)', GLOBALIZATIONS, [C1]
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2023 | Motta S, Bermudez N, Miranda E, 'An erotic and poetic political subjectivity of the sacred (en)flesh(ed', Globalizations, (2023) [C1] | ||||||||||
2023 | Motta S, 'The Epistemological Intimacies of the Urban Frontier: Mangrove Swamps, Possessive (Non)Belonging and Kinship (M)otherwise', Globalizations, 20 208-224 (2023) [C1] | ||||||||||
2022 |
Motta SC, 'Decolonising (critical) social theory: Enfleshing post-Covid futurities', Thesis Eleven, 170 58-77 (2022) [C1] Decolonial/anti-colonial Black, Indigenous and Mestiza feminist movements and scholar-activists foreground how the oft-touted apocalypse that the Covid-19 pandemic heralds is not ... [more] Decolonial/anti-colonial Black, Indigenous and Mestiza feminist movements and scholar-activists foreground how the oft-touted apocalypse that the Covid-19 pandemic heralds is not new, nor does it signify the great rupture into chaos that those from within modernity-coloniality often claim it to be. Rather Covid-19 is preceded by and will be out-lived by the apocalyptic anti-life onto-epistemological logics that are foundational to the (re)production of hetero-patriarchal capitalist-(settler) coloniality. However, one would commit the violence of reproduction of the epistemological logics and (ir)rationalities constitutive of the current system if the story ended there. We have survived (despite our losses) and our survival points to the urgent necessity and responsibility of (critical) social theory to listen to the story of the pandemic from a Black/Indigenous genealogy and to begin the sense-making of the Covid-19 pandemic, from prior to this particular virus, outside, against and beyond the politics of knowledge of critical social theory itself. Thus, I invite you to journey to an affirmative re-enfleshment of reason and theory-making in relation to and dialogue with Black, Indigenous, and subaltern Mestiza feminist movements in southwest Colombia and in southeast so-called Australia in the unceded lands of the Awabakal and the Worimi. I explore this through the metaphor, the materiality, the cosmology and the herstory of the mangrove swamps a knowing-being otherwise (in)visible to the dehumanising gave of Whiteness and bring to thought three stories of a politics of knowledge of/as the Black/racialised and feminised body/flesh. To do this is to suggest that the co-creation of pathways which are life affirming and life making beyond and out of the post-Covid 19 conjuncture involves an epistemological-political project which decolonises and feminises the containments of reason and knowing (non)being of coloniality/modernity.
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2022 | Motta S, Allen MK, 'Decolonising critique in, against and beyond the business school', Ephemera: theory and politics in organization, 22 21-51 (2022) [C1] | Nova | |||||||||
2021 |
Motta SC, 'Decolonizing Our Feminist/ized Revolutions: Enfleshed Praxis from Southwest Colombia', Latin American Perspectives, 48 124-142 (2021) [C1] An initial mapping of the decolonial feminisms emergent in Buenaventura and Cali, Southwest Colombia, in the Afro-Colombian and indigenous political Escuela de Mariposas de Alas N... [more] An initial mapping of the decolonial feminisms emergent in Buenaventura and Cali, Southwest Colombia, in the Afro-Colombian and indigenous political Escuela de Mariposas de Alas Nuevas and Círculo de Hombres, Cali, shows that they move within and beyond a politics and epistemology of representation in a return to the enfleshed as territories of transformatory wisdoms and the embrace of ancestrality and feminist spirituality. Un mapeo inicial de los feminismos decoloniales surgidos en Buenaventura y Cali, en el suroeste de Colombia, dentro de las agrupaciones políticas afrocolombianas e indígenas Escuela de Mariposas de Alas Nuevas y Círculo de Hombres, Cali, muestra que se mueven dentro y fuera de una política y epistemología de representación y ejercen un retorno a lo encarnado como territorios de sabidurías transformadoras a la vez que abrazan la ancestralidad y la espiritualidad feminista.
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2020 |
Everingham P, Motta SC, 'Decolonising the 'autonomy of affect' in volunteer tourism encounters', TOURISM GEOGRAPHIES, 24 223-243 (2020) [C1]
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2019 |
Motta SC, Bermudez NL, 'Enfleshing temporal insurgencies and decolonial times', Globalizations, 16 424-440 (2019) [C1] Time and temporality often remain the unthought in our spaces, moments, and movements of radical political imagination and practice. In this contribution, we aim to open a dialogu... [more] Time and temporality often remain the unthought in our spaces, moments, and movements of radical political imagination and practice. In this contribution, we aim to open a dialogue between current queer/feminist/black/decolonial scholarship on time, and the praxis of feminist movements and women in movement in Cali, Colombia. We hope to nurture, in this way, a systematization of the role of decolonial times and insurgent temporalities in our anti-capitalist praxis and deepen the theorization of decolonial emancipation and/as healing. We develop this systematization through exploration of three moments of encounter; the first a women-only workshop ¿Finding Voice¿, the second a workshop that was part of a diálogo de saberes between feminist/peace movements in the region, and the final a public talk-performance at the International Conference in Mental Health and Well-Being, all held in Cali. Exploration and excavation of these moments suggest-enflesh that embracing our untimely rhythms and that which is out-of-time in our subjectivities, excavating together the epistemological possibilities of silence and the pauses in-between speech, as well as reconfiguring ¿failure¿ as a moment of possibility, open embodied pathways to decolonising and feminising the revolutionary political.
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2019 |
Motta SC, Amsler S, 'The Marketised University and the Politics of Motherhood', Gender and Education, 82-99 (2019) [C1]
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2019 |
Motta S, 'Feminising Our Revolutions', Soundings: a journal of culture and politics, 71 15-27 (2019) [C1]
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2018 |
Motta SC, Bennett A, 'Pedagogies of care, care-full epistemological practice and other
caring subjectivities in Enabling Education', TEACHING IN HIGHER EDUCATION, 23 631-646 (2018) [C1]
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2017 |
Motta SC, 'Emancipation in Latin America: On the Pedagogical Turn', Bulletin of Latin American Research, 36 5-20 (2017) [C1] Latin American social movements are reinventing emancipatory politics, in which those invisibilised and excluded by capitalist-coloniality are emerging as the emancipatory subject... [more] Latin American social movements are reinventing emancipatory politics, in which those invisibilised and excluded by capitalist-coloniality are emerging as the emancipatory subjects of our times. Rather than a method of learning, pedagogy is understood as a radical educational project of subaltern transformation and politics. Emancipatory pedagogical praxis occurs in multiple spatialities and embraces multiple knowledges and subaltern subjects. These knowing-subjects become creators of political agency, movement practices and imaginaries, and collective self-liberation. I develop my analysis with reference to movement educators who I work with in the Brazilian Movimento sem Terra (MST, Landless Workers Movement) and Colombian Escuela Política de Mujeres Pazífica (Political School of Pacifist Women, Escuela).
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2017 |
Motta SC, 'Latin America as political science s other', Social Identities, 23 701-717 (2017) [C1]
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2017 |
Jose JW, Motta, 'Reoccupying the political: transforming political science', Social Identities, 23 651-660 (2017) [C1]
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2017 | Motta SC, Seppala T, 'Feminized Resistances', Journal of Resistance Studies, 2 1-28 (2017) [C1] | Nova | |||||||||
2017 | Motta SC, 'Decolonizing Australia s Body Politics: Contesting the Coloniality of Violence of Child Removal', Journal of Resistance Studies, 2 100-133 (2017) [C1] | Nova | |||||||||
2015 |
Motta SC, 'Song and Social Change in Latin America', BULLETIN OF LATIN AMERICAN RESEARCH, 34 430-U188 (2015) [C3]
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2014 | Motta SC, 'Reinventing Revolutionary Subjects in Venezuela', Politics and Culture, 1 1-20 (2014) [C1] | Nova | |||||||||
2013 |
Mansell J, Motta SC, 'Re-articulating Dissent: Representing the Working Class from Third Way to New Right in Britain and Chile', POLITICAL STUDIES, 61 748-766 (2013) [C1]
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2013 |
Motta SC, '"We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For" The Feminization of Resistance in Venezuela', LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, 40 35-54 (2013) [C1]
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2013 |
Motta SC, 'Reinventing the lefts in Latin America: Critical perspectives from below', Latin American Perspectives, 40 5-18 (2013) [C1] Transgressing traditional left conceptualizations of popular political subjectivities and the nature of political and social change, the reinvention of Latin American lefts from b... [more] Transgressing traditional left conceptualizations of popular political subjectivities and the nature of political and social change, the reinvention of Latin American lefts from below presents a challenge to the dominant androcentric social-cultural matrix of the twentieth-century left, in which organized labor was often viewed as the key agent of popular struggle and the state as the key political tool of social transformation. The development of new concepts and theories is embedded in a commitment to a politics of knowledge that begins from the ground up and builds from the realities of popular politics in community struggles, movement organizing, and everyday life. The urgency of comparative engagement with the reinvention of the lefts from below is not only empirical and political but historiographical and ethical. As many of the contributors to this issue argue, the communities, subjects, and movements that are the lifeblood of this reinvention are commonly spoken over by discourses that misname and misrepresent their struggles.
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Show 39 more journal articles |
Conference (1 outputs)
Year | Citation | Altmetrics | Link | ||
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2017 |
Bennett A, Motta S, Hamilton E, Burgess C, Relf B, Leroy-Dyer S, et al., 'Theorising enabling pedagogies', Theorising enabling pedagogies, SCU, Gold Coast (2017)
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Media (19 outputs)
Year | Citation | Altmetrics | Link |
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2022 | Motta SC, 'Voices of el pueblo: the road to the Colombian elections', (2022) | ||
2022 | Motta SC, 'Breathing into being a decolonising sovereignty-led politics of life in, against and beyond the pandemic'', (2022) | ||
2016 | Motta SC, 'Reading Our Political Moment Pedagogically', (2016) | ||
Show 16 more medias |
Report (2 outputs)
Year | Citation | Altmetrics | Link | ||
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2018 |
Bennett AK, Motta S, Hamilton E, Burgess C, Relf B, Gray K, et al., 'Enabling Pedagogies: A participatory conceptual mapping of practices at
the University of Newcastle, Australia', Centre of Excellence for Equity in Higher Education (2018)
|
||||
2018 |
Bennett A, Motta SC, Hamilton E, Burgess C, Relf B, Gray K, Leroy-Dyer S, 'Conceptualising Enabling Pedagogies at the University of Newcastle', Centre for Excellence in Education in Higher Education, 250 (2018)
|
Grants and Funding
Summary
Number of grants | 16 |
---|---|
Total funding | $469,027 |
Click on a grant title below to expand the full details for that specific grant.
20232 grants / $7,227
(In)visibilising care in, against and beyond Politics $7,000
Funding body: Australian Political Studies Association
Funding body | Australian Political Studies Association |
---|---|
Project Team | A/Professor Sara C. Motta, Dr Monika Barthal-Datta, Dr Caitlin Biddolf, Jihyun Kim and Sian Perry |
Scheme | Australian Political Studies Association Annual Workshop Award |
Role | Lead |
Funding Start | 2023 |
Funding Finish | 2023 |
GNo | |
Type Of Funding | C1700 - Aust Competitive - Other |
Category | 1700 |
UON | N |
CHSF Conference Travel Grant$227
Funding body: College of Human and Social Futures | University of Newcastle
Funding body | College of Human and Social Futures | University of Newcastle |
---|---|
Project Team | A/Prof Sara Motta |
Scheme | CHSF - Conference Travel Scheme |
Role | Lead |
Funding Start | 2023 |
Funding Finish | 2023 |
GNo | |
Type Of Funding | Internal |
Category | INTE |
UON | N |
20221 grants / $30,000
Healing the next generations: Fostering Indigenous youth and community well-being$30,000
Funding body: Bennelong Foundation
Funding body | Bennelong Foundation |
---|---|
Project Team | Associate Professor Sara Motta, Auntie Theresa Dargin, Theresa Darin |
Scheme | Grow grant |
Role | Lead |
Funding Start | 2022 |
Funding Finish | 2022 |
GNo | G2200913 |
Type Of Funding | C3200 – Aust Not-for Profit |
Category | 3200 |
UON | Y |
20212 grants / $4,800
CHSF Working Parents Research Relief Scheme$3,000
Funding body: College of Human and Social Futures | University of Newcastle
Funding body | College of Human and Social Futures | University of Newcastle |
---|---|
Scheme | CHSF - Working Parents Research Relief Scheme |
Role | Lead |
Funding Start | 2021 |
Funding Finish | 2021 |
GNo | |
Type Of Funding | Internal |
Category | INTE |
UON | N |
Conference Travel Scheme Grant$1,800
Funding body: College of Human and Social Futures, University of Newcastle
Funding body | College of Human and Social Futures, University of Newcastle |
---|---|
Scheme | 2021 CHSF Conference Travel Scheme |
Role | Lead |
Funding Start | 2021 |
Funding Finish | 2021 |
GNo | |
Type Of Funding | Internal |
Category | INTE |
UON | N |
20201 grants / $6,000
Women Weaving the New Economy: Country, Care and Connection$6,000
Funding body: Faculty Business and Law
Funding body | Faculty Business and Law |
---|---|
Project Team | Sara C. Motta, Michelle Maloney (NENA) and Ybiskay Gonzalez |
Scheme | Women Weaving the New Economy: Country, Care and Connection |
Role | Lead |
Funding Start | 2020 |
Funding Finish | 2020 |
GNo | |
Type Of Funding | Internal |
Category | INTE |
UON | N |
20182 grants / $21,000
Alternative Futures and Regional Prospects Research Network: Working across Differences, Beyond Carbon, Capital and Commodity$15,000
Funding body: Faculty of Education and Arts, University of Newcastle
Funding body | Faculty of Education and Arts, University of Newcastle |
---|---|
Project Team | S Hamed Hosseini, Terence Lovat, Roger Markwick, Nancy Cushing, Sara Motta, William Mitchell, Martin Watts |
Scheme | Strategic Network and Pilot Project Grants Scheme |
Role | Investigator |
Funding Start | 2018 |
Funding Finish | 2019 |
GNo | |
Type Of Funding | C1RD |
Category | 1RD |
UON | N |
Equity Pedagogies in the Teaching of First Year Economics and Politics$6,000
Quantitative data suggest that there are challenges in retention, completion and success in first year courses, particularly for students from equity backgrounds across the Business School. The proposed qualitative project aims to work collaboratively to iteratively research and address the causes of these challenges in the discipline of Economics, Politics and International Relations, in particular, in the large first year courses POLI1020, and ECON1001. The project will be led by Dr Sara C Motta who has extensive experience in equity pedagogies research and in the development of strategies to improve inclusive teaching and quality student experience. She will be joined by Dr Anna Bennett, who is an expert on issues and approaches to equity in higher education, Dr Andrew Nadolny, lead course coordinator of Econ1001, Dr Elsa Licumba experienced sessional staff on ECON1002 and ECON1001, and Dr Bronwyn Macdonald, an experienced sessional staff member in POLI1020.
Funding body: NeW Education Framework I University of Newcastle
Funding body | NeW Education Framework I University of Newcastle |
---|---|
Project Team | Dr Sara C Motta, Dr Anna Bennett, Dr Andrew Nadolny, Dr Elsa Lucumba, Dr Bronwyn Macdonald |
Scheme | NeW Education Framework |
Role | Lead |
Funding Start | 2018 |
Funding Finish | 2018 |
GNo | |
Type Of Funding | C4000 - CRC UON Participant |
Category | 4000 |
UON | N |
20173 grants / $287,000
Improving Indigenous participation, retention and success in Australia business-related higher education$200,000
A cross-faculty and cross-institutional research team, led by Head of the Newcastle Business School Professor Morris Altman and the Business School’s Dr Tamara Young, has received a $200,000 Australian Government Higher Education Participation and Partnerships Program (HEPPP) grant for a research project focusing on developing strategies to improve Indigenous participation and success in business.
The project, Improving Indigenous participation, retention and success in Australian business-related higher education, is also part of the Australian Business Deans Council initiative on Aboriginal business education.
Particular attention will be paid to identifying barriers to participation and success in business education, and developing recommendations for increasing participation and success of Indigenous students from low socio-economic backgrounds. The project will build an evidence base to inform strategies and initiatives, which will be further informed by, and shared with, a Community of Practice established and fostered by the project. The Community of Practice will comprise a network of academic and professional staff in business-related higher education, university-based Indigenous institutes and centres, and Indigenous students, alumni and business communities.
The project team includes Faculty members Dr Sara Motta and Kate Ramzan-Levy, and colleagues from the Wollotuka Institute, the School of Humanities and Social Science, University of New England and Victoria University of Wellington.
Funding body: Commonwealth HEPP
Funding body | Commonwealth HEPP |
---|---|
Project Team | Prof Morris Altman, Dr Tamara Young |
Scheme | Commonwealth HEPP |
Role | Lead |
Funding Start | 2017 |
Funding Finish | 2017 |
GNo | |
Type Of Funding | Aust Competitive - Commonwealth |
Category | 1CS |
UON | N |
Una Politica de Genero por la Paz$80,000
Funding body: ColSciencias
Funding body | ColSciencias |
---|---|
Project Team | Prof Jeanny Posso |
Scheme | 2017 HE education sector equity funding |
Role | Investigator |
Funding Start | 2017 |
Funding Finish | 2019 |
GNo | |
Type Of Funding | C1RD |
Category | 1RD |
UON | N |
Gender, Generation and Culture$7,000
Funding body: FEDUA
Funding body | FEDUA |
---|---|
Project Team | Trisha Penda, Sara C Motta and Akane Kanai |
Scheme | University of Newcastle |
Role | Investigator |
Funding Start | 2017 |
Funding Finish | 2017 |
GNo | |
Type Of Funding | Internal |
Category | INTE |
UON | N |
20161 grants / $20,000
Mapping Enabling Pedagogies$20,000
Funding body: Centre for Excellence in Equity in Higher Education (CEEHE)
Funding body | Centre for Excellence in Equity in Higher Education (CEEHE) |
---|---|
Project Team | Sara C Motta and Anna Bennett |
Scheme | Seed Grant Funding |
Role | Lead |
Funding Start | 2016 |
Funding Finish | 2017 |
GNo | |
Type Of Funding | Internal |
Category | INTE |
UON | N |
20153 grants / $83,000
Interacciones: Pedagogia, educacao e movimentos socias$48,000
Funding body: Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES)
Funding body | Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES) |
---|---|
Project Team | Dr Sara C Motta, Prof Sandra Gadelha, Prof Ernandi Mendes, Prof Joyce Canaan |
Scheme | International Collaboration Scheme |
Role | Investigator |
Funding Start | 2015 |
Funding Finish | 2016 |
GNo | |
Type Of Funding | International - Competitive |
Category | 3IFA |
UON | N |
Motherhood and Academe: Questions of (In)Equity?$20,000
Funding body: Centre for Excellence in Equity in Higher Education (CEEHE)
Funding body | Centre for Excellence in Equity in Higher Education (CEEHE) |
---|---|
Project Team | Dr Sara C Motta, Lara Daley, Suzanne Barker |
Scheme | Seed Grant Funding |
Role | Lead |
Funding Start | 2015 |
Funding Finish | 2016 |
GNo | |
Type Of Funding | Internal |
Category | INTE |
UON | N |
Religion, Marxism and Secularism$15,000
Funding body: University of Newcastle - Faculty of Education and Arts
Funding body | University of Newcastle - Faculty of Education and Arts |
---|---|
Project Team | Professor Roland Boer, Doctor Euridice Charon-Cardona, Associate Professor Tom Griffiths, Doctor James Juniper, Emeritus Professor Terry Lovat, Conjoint Professor Marion Maddox, Associate Professor Sara Motta, Doctor Christina Petterson, Doctor Timothy Stanley |
Scheme | Strategic Networks Grant |
Role | Investigator |
Funding Start | 2015 |
Funding Finish | 2015 |
GNo | G1500896 |
Type Of Funding | Internal |
Category | INTE |
UON | Y |
20141 grants / $10,000
APSA Workshop Funding$10,000
Funding body: Australian Political Studies Association
Funding body | Australian Political Studies Association |
---|---|
Project Team | Dr Sara C Motta and Assoc Prof Jim Jose |
Scheme | Australian Political Studies Association Annual Workshop Award |
Role | Lead |
Funding Start | 2014 |
Funding Finish | 2014 |
GNo | |
Type Of Funding | Grant - Aust Non Government |
Category | 3AFG |
UON | N |
Research Supervision
Number of supervisions
Current Supervision
Commenced | Level of Study | Research Title | Program | Supervisor Type |
---|---|---|---|---|
2022 | PhD | Racialized Mothers as Repositories of Healing Ancestral Knowledge. Subjectivities of Enfleshed, Cultural Knowing-being as Counter-narrative to Western Biomedicine's Hegemony of Knowledge on Maternal Wellbeing in the Blue Mountains, of So Called Australia. | PhD (Politics), College of Human and Social Futures, The University of Newcastle | Principal Supervisor |
2022 | PhD | The World Food System, Domestic Food Security Policies and the Social Responses in South Korea | PhD (Politics), College of Human and Social Futures, The University of Newcastle | Principal Supervisor |
2022 | PhD | Mad Queer Poets' Other Worlding of Politics of Wellbeing | PhD (Politics), College of Human and Social Futures, The University of Newcastle | Principal Supervisor |
2022 | PhD | Against the Current: Counter-narratives Within the Murray-Darling Basin | PhD (Politics), College of Human and Social Futures, The University of Newcastle | Principal Supervisor |
2021 | PhD | Not So Quiet Australians: Politically Apathic, Or Unapologetically Political? | PhD (Politics), College of Human and Social Futures, The University of Newcastle | Principal Supervisor |
2019 | PhD | UK Voters' Behaviour Analysis of the 2016 Referendum | PhD (Politics), College of Human and Social Futures, The University of Newcastle | Principal Supervisor |
2019 | PhD | Justifying Action on Climate Change: A Qualitative Analysis of Australian Climate Movement Organisations Post Paris Agreement 2015 | PhD (Management), College of Human and Social Futures, The University of Newcastle | Principal Supervisor |
2016 | PhD | New Resistances: Women at the Intersections of Austerity and Gender Violence | PhD (Politics), College of Human and Social Futures, The University of Newcastle | Principal Supervisor |
Past Supervision
Year | Level of Study | Research Title | Program | Supervisor Type |
---|---|---|---|---|
2023 | PhD | A War of Attrition: Precarity and Paucity for Refugees and Asylum Seekers in Hong Kong | PhD (Sociology & Anthropology), College of Human and Social Futures, The University of Newcastle | Co-Supervisor |
2020 | PhD | Exploring and Explaining the Vulnerability and Resilience of Migrant Women in Viet Nam | PhD (Management), College of Human and Social Futures, The University of Newcastle | Principal Supervisor |
2019 | PhD | The Language of Strategy: A Study in Australian Prime Ministerial Rhetoric and Campaign Speechmaking, 1983-2013 | PhD (Politics), College of Human and Social Futures, The University of Newcastle | Co-Supervisor |
2019 | PhD | The Politics of Gendered Memory of Japanese "Comfort Women" | PhD (Politics), College of Human and Social Futures, The University of Newcastle | Principal Supervisor |
2018 | PhD | Sites of Dissent: Spatial Practices of Autonomous Social Movements in Europe as Socio-Political Conflict: a Comparative Participatory Action Research | Political Science, Ruhr University Bochum | Co-Supervisor |
2018 | PhD | The Confrontational ‘Us and Them’ Dynamics of Polarised Politics in Venezuela: A Post-Structuralist Examination | PhD (Politics), College of Human and Social Futures, The University of Newcastle | Principal Supervisor |
2017 | PhD | Iris Marion Young, Political Responsibility and the Politics of Ethical Consumption | PhD (Politics), College of Human and Social Futures, The University of Newcastle | Co-Supervisor |
2017 | PhD | An Analysis of the Failed West Papuan Decolonisation Process: National Narrative vs the Rights of a Non-Self-Governing Territory | PhD (Politics), College of Human and Social Futures, The University of Newcastle | Principal Supervisor |
2014 | PhD | ‘Decolonising International Relations: The Problematique of Displacement | Political Science, The University of Nottingham | Principal Supervisor |
2012 | PhD | The political culture of the Chilean Socialist Party and Its influence on the nomination of Michelle Bachelet as presidential candidate in 2005’. | Political Science, The University of Nottingham | Principal Supervisor |
2012 | PhD | ‘A new collective politics? The potential and constraints of local participation and the concept of social capital' | Political Science, The University of Nottingham | Principal Supervisor |
2012 | PhD | ‘Beyond Good and Bad Practice: The Politics and Ethics of Youth Work’. | Political Science, The University of Nottingham | Principal Supervisor |
2011 | PhD | The Comités de Tierra Urbana (CTUs) and the “Right to the City”: New Views on the Venezuelan Socialist State | Political Science, The University of Nottingham | Co-Supervisor |
News
News • 5 Apr 2017
New network creates cross-disciplinary fusion of gender, generation and culture
The Gender, Generation and Culture research network is a new initiative of the Centre for 21st Century Humanities at the University of Newcastle, led by Centre member Dr Patricia Pender (pictured - English and Writing) with Dr Akane Kanai (Sociology) and Dr Sara Motta (Politics). The new network, which was established in January is designed to link scholars actively engaged with issues of gender, generation, and culture across the university.
News • 8 Jun 2016
$200,000 HEPPP Grant for Indigenous Participation Research
Newcastle Business School has received a $200,000 grant for research focusing on developing strategies to improve Indigenous participation and success in business.
News • 20 Jan 2015
Domestic Workers, Social Security and Gender Politics in India
The Newcastle Business School welcomed Professor Rajeshwari Deshpande for a public lecture
Associate Professor Sara Motta
Position
Associate Professor
Discipline of Politics and IR
Newcastle Business School
College of Human and Social Futures
Focus area
Politics and International Relations
Contact Details
sara.c.motta@newcastle.edu.au | |
Phone | (02) 4921 5020 |
Fax | (02) 4921 4101 |
Office
Room | X.738 |
---|---|
Building | NeW Space |
Location | City Campus , |