Biography

Working in community education for over 25 years, Dr. Sáenz’s creative collaborations question dominant narratives, expand awareness, and build collective knowledges that grow socioecological health and equity. In her native Mexico, she researches Zapatista Seed Pedagogics, introduced in GRIETAS: a Journal of Zapatista Thought and Horizons. In Ramaytush territory (San Francisco), she teaches Interdisciplinary Studies in a critical pedagogy, inter-generational Bachelors Completion Program at the California Institute of Integral Studies since 2007. As part of the larger continental struggle for Indigenous resurgence and autonomy, she supports the land rematriation efforts of the Muchia-Té Indigenous Land Trust. Previously, she taught for World Learning with the Universidad de la Tierra, Oaxaca, and Universidad de la Tierra in Chiapas at CIDECI, the Indigenous Center of Integral Capacity-building. She was co-director and media producer for Chicago’s Street-Level Youth Media, and in Lebanon as Artist-in-Residence at BHS Quaker school and Al-Jana, the Arab Resource Center for Popular Arts in Beirut. She has served on the boards of Deep Medicine Circle and Women in the Director's Chair. Humbled and inspired by the Zapatistas’ EVERYTHING FOR EVERYONE and caminando-preguntando, she joins and invites fellow artists, scientists, and peoples of conscience everywhere to listen more deeply to each other as well as to the subjugated knowledges and creatures of our world.

Education

Doctorate in Sciences of Ecology (ECOSUR: Colegio de la Frontera Sur); Certificate in Latin American Emancipatory Feminisms (CESMECA); MFA in experimental film and new media (SAIC); Ed.M. in International Education for Social & Political Change (HGSE); and a B.A. from Yale University in Art.

Research Interests

Creative inquiry, emancipatory feminisms, and decolonizing processes; experimental community storytelling; Indigenous epistemologies and practices; tending of medicinal gardens and kitchens.

Awards & Distinctions

Mesa Refuge Writing Fellow, 2022; Santa Fe Art Institute’s REVOLUTION Residency, 2022; Mexican National Council for Science and Technology (CONACyT) Fellowship, 2018-2021, 1996-1997; AEPOCH Foundation Grantee, 2007-2008; University of Chicago, Center for Study of Race, Politics, & Culture Fellowship, 2005-2006; Mexico/USA Fund for Culture Fellowship 2001-2002; Alpha Delta Kappa International Education award, 1997-1998; Yale History of Art Department, Marshall-Allison Award, 1993; University of Southern California Mexican-American Association Award, 1989-1990.

Courses

Intro to Social & Political Ecologies
Decolonizing Worldviews
Thinking & Writing
Self & Society
Histories of Capitalism and our Modern Era
Integral Learning
Global Systems and Perspectives
Planetary Interconnections
Social Movements
Research & Writing
Senior Project
Politics of Food
The Artist in Society
Dias de Muertos: study-trip to Oaxaca
Integral Co-Leadership
Creating Communities & Coalitions
Decolonizing Ecologies
Zapatismo: study-trip to Chiapas
Decolonial Wisdom: the Pedagogy of Body-Territory
Native Bees & their Territories: study-trip to Veracruz

Publications

Sáenz, C. M. (2023). Zapatista Seed Pedagogics: beyond rights, creating a decolonizing co-education. International Journal of Human Rights Education, vol7/iss1/4, University of San Francisco.

Sáenz, C. M., Barbosa, L.P., Salazar, T. C. “Pedagógica de Semilla en el movimiento zapatista: siembra y crecimiento de un sujeto colectivo político,” PRÁXIS Educacional, 17(46) 2021: 1-24. 

Sáenz, C. M., “Decolonial Education in the Americas: Lessons of Resistance; Pedagogies of Hope,” LÁPIZ Journal, vol. 3, published by the Latin American Philosophy of Education Society, Columbia University’s Teachers College, Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race, 2017: 104-114.

Sáenz, C. M., Book Review of Hilary Klein’s Compañeras: Zapatista Women’s Stories, published in Other Worlds, Huffington Post, Towards Freedom, Truthout, World Post, Newstral, Daily Kos, Peace & Development Network, One News Page, 2015.

Sáenz, C. M., “Other Politics of Ayotzinapa,” originally published on Other Worlds website (also in The Nation, Foreign Policy in Focus, InterPress Service, Truthout, Upside Down Latin American Politics Review, NACLA, IPS News, Z-Magazine), 2015.

Sáenz, C. M., “Women Up in Arms: Zapatista and Rojava Kurds embrace a new gender politics,” originally published in Other Worlds (also in Huffington Post, The Nation, TruthOut, Daily Kos, Foreign Policy in Focus, World Pulse, Rahaf Online News, EIN NEWSDESK: World News Report, Toward Freedom, Upside Down, Portside, The Non-Profit Press, Gender and Evaluation, Lockerdome, #fnews, Z-Magazine, The Awakened Wire, One News Page, efabula, Houston Sun Post), 2015.

Sáenz, C. M., “Ayotzinapa’s Uncomfortable Dead,” published in Other Worlds (also in The Nation, Foreign Policy in Focus, Truthout, Upside Down Latin American Politics Review, NACLA, IPS News, Z-Magazine), 2014.

Sáenz, C. M., “Buried Key: Reflections on the Zapatista Escuelita,” Znet Magazine, 2014.

Sáenz, C. M., “Learning to We”, Journal of Aesthetics and Protest, Issue #6, Los Angeles, CA, 2008.

Sáenz, C. M., “Sharing Stories, Reaping Harvest,” (published in Arabic) Al-Jana Periodical, Beirut, 2005.