(Maria Ines) MI Cubides Kovacsics, MA

Biography

I have a particular interest in gender and sexuality, youth, security, and in research methodologies, epistemic justice, participation and decolonial practices. I have worked for identifying and fighting discrimination, exclusion and rights violations alongside LGBTQ colleagues, imprisoned transgender women, homeless people, drug users, street vendors, teenagers and young people with deprivation of liberty sanction. Currently, I am interested in continuing to explore different and innovative strategies for participation, and to reflect on how they can help to achieve social justice both within academia and beyond. For this reason, I am exploring and learning about the potential and limitations of participatory methodologies, particularly in different contexts of humanitarian crises in which participation can be a challenge for everyone. I am particularly interested in investigating the different dynamics created by these methodologies in which the personal and academic intersect, creating particular relationships between the people involved in the research, and its consequences for epistemic and social justice agendas.