Dr. Laura Montes de Oca Barrera

Voices and Images of Migration was a research project focused on understanding the experiences of professional women from Latin America who arrived in Canada as immigrants or refugees. First, through a methodological approach that articulated digital storytelling and photography and, later, with the filming of a documentary series, this project involved carrying out collaborative research with eight Latin American women living in Calgary. 

Through semi-structured interviews, we reconstructed these women’s migratory pathways: departure from their home country; arrival and settlement in Canada; and adaptation to and integration into Canadian society. The interviews reconstructed the challenges, opportunities, and achievements during their migratory journey. 

The main products of this project are:

• The photovoice exhibition Open Arms to a New Life was shown at the "Latin American Arts and Culture Festival" organized in C-Space by Casa-México in September 2023, and at "Welcoming Week" in September 2024 at the Central Library in Calgary.
• A television documentary series Latinas’ Diary: A Journey of Strength, Hope, and Empowerment, sponsored through a grant from TELUS Storyhive, 2023. Available at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLuj3rWl-eKLGfLlLffmP-yQzpNEc_vWDe
• A book chapter about the research project’s visual sociological methodology to be published in Spanish by the Institute of Social Research in Mexico City.
• A book chapter about the collaborative research approach to be published in Spanish by the Institute of Social Research in Mexico City.
• “Producing Collaborative Knowledge through Multimedia: Latin American Women Living in Canada.” Paper presented at the Canadian Ethnic Studies Association Conference in Edmonton, November 14-16, 2024.
• “Building Social Support Networks among Latin American Women in Calgary.” Panel presentation at the Canadian Ethnic Studies Association Conference in Edmonton, November 14-16, 2024.

Individual and Collective Strategies to Promote Social Change was a long-term project developed in collaboration with Professor Scott McLean (University of Calgary), and with the participation of UNAM graduate students. In this project, social change in contemporary Mexico and Canada was analyzed through individual and collective strategies such as: 1) activism and involvement in social movements and advocacy networks; 2) participation in civil society organizations and community-based groups; 3) participation in mutual support and self-help groups; 4) reading books and manuals for wellbeing and self-help.

The main products of this research are:

• “Understanding self-help: Interdisciplinary keys to analyzing an expanding cultural practice,” with Scott McLean. Revista Interdisciplinaria de estudios latinoamericanos, 2019, 3 (3): 11-28.
• “Public pedagogues of change: advocacy networks, civil society organizations, and self-help authors in Mexico,” with Scott McLean. International Journal of Lifelong Education. 43(1) 67-86, 2024.
• 2024, “Feminist protest song as a counterhegemonic device of public pedagogy for social change,” with Abigail Mazon, REvista Korpus21 El Colegio Mexiquense.

Public Engagement of Civil Society Organizations in Mexico was a participatory research project undertaken collaboratively with civil society organizations interested in promoting social change in Mexico. The main objective of this research was to analyze the possibilities (and impossibilities) of non-governmental agents influencing government and public decision-making. Based on experiences of six associational forms (civil society organizations and advocacy networks) we analyzed institutional conditions and organizational capacities and strategies for effective participatory governance. 

The main products of this project are:

• Paths of Governance in Mexico: Advances, Pauses, Obstacles and Setbacks. Edited with Laura Martínez. Mexico City: Institute of Social Research, UNAM, 2022. 
• “Evaluating and improving. Towards a practical guide to analyzing the performance of social organizations,” with McLean, Scott. Cadena, Jorge (Ed.) Contributions to the Study of Associative Performance, Mexico: CEICH-UNAM, 2022.
• “Governance and Power: Transformations of the Articulation Patterns between Public, Private and Social actors,” in Romero, Adela and Alejo, Antonio (Eds.) Governance overview: Perspectives and challenges for its study in Ibero America, Tirant lo blanch, Spain, 2021. 

Regulatory Governance was a research project undertaken in two phases. The first phase analysed proccesses of regulating ultraprocessed food and sugary drinks in Mexico through the theoretical lenses of citizen engagement and market-driven influence in public decision-making. The second phase studied food labelling regulations through the theoretical lens of food pedagogies. The project involved original research  through a combination of unobtrusive and ethnographic methods. 

The main products of this research projects are:

• Junk Food: Between Regulatory Governance and Simulation, Mexico City: Institute of Social Research, UNAM, 2019.
• “Persistent Exclusion in Mexico: Regulatory Governance as an Imperfect Project of Political Modernization,” Politics & Policy, 2019, 47 (1): 127-151.
• “Governance of interests in food and beverage regulation in Mexico,” to be published in a book edited by the Institute of Social Research, UNAM.

Based on the concept of “cultural pedagogies” (Watkins, et. al. 2015) this research aims to shed light on the formation of subjects and “finding one’s way.” The concept of “finding one’s way” is understood as an ensemble of physical and social, public and private, local and national processes shaped by institutional and cultural teaching and learning. It is grounded in pedagogic practices within the family and in neighbourhoods, but generates a sense of residing in entities beyond the home and locality” (Noble, 2015: 41).

The study will produce knowledge about how Latin American women learn everyday skills to find their way as newcomers, immigrants, or refugees in Calgary. The conceptual framework of “cultural pedagogies” foregrounds how “conduct is capacitated and regulated” through “cumulative changes” that impact practices and relations, as well as actions, feelings, and imagination (Noble, 2015: 34). The research will consider not only formal, localized education for settlement and integration (Hepbu, 2022; Ng & Shan, 2010), but also aspects of identity politics in relation to pedagogical projects of everyday life (Luke, 1996).

Based on a case study methodological design and employing narrative analysis, this research will reconstruct the life experiences of Latina women living in Calgary to analyze domains of everyday pedagogy that shape minds and bodies. Pedagogical ensembles will be analyzed through their messages and the way women receive and internalize them in their everyday lives. The study will analyze empirical evidence about how immigrants, particularly women coming from Latin America, adapt through learning, relearning and unlearning practices and values in order to become active and contributive members of communities and the broader society. 

Through meetings with scholars from different disciplines and universities, this seminar aims to shed light on some reflections about the diverse ways the social can be narrated.

We are interested in discussing the disciplinary boundaries and the understanding of the construction of knowledge while promoting the recognition of subjectivity, intersubjectivity, and science not as separate torrents but as complementary human expressions.

This seminar has been coordinated by Laura Montes de Oca and Hugo Jose Suarez since 2022 at the Institute of Social Research-UNAM (IIS-UNAM). In 2025 it will be organized as an interinstitutional effort from the University of Calgary and the IIS-UNAM.

Transmedia Lab aims to establish an open and flexible space for innovation, creation, and experimentation to understand, analyze, and construct knowledge from the multiple layers of meaning of social expressions that favor collaboration through transdisciplinary and multimedia narratives.

Coordinated by:

• Laura B. Montes de Oca Barrera (University of Calgary)
• Elena Nava Morales (Institute of Social Research-UNAM)
• Ehécatl Cabrera Franco (Institute of Social Research-UNAM)
• Silvana Torres Campoy (Political and Social Sciences Faculty-UNAM)

With the participation of:

• Nazario Robles (University of Calgary)
• Francisco Alaniz (University of Calgary)
• Berenice Cancino (University of Calgary)
• Patricia Campos (University of Calgary)
• Marcela Meneses (Institute of Social Research-UNAM)
• Delphine Prunier (Institute of Social Research-UNAM)
• Erandy Arellano (PhD in Geography, UNAM)

Hosted by the Mexican Council of Social Sciences (Consejo Mexicano de Ciencias Sociales, COMECSO) this working group aims to gather scholars from all disciplines of Social Sciences and Humanities to share and discuss methodological, epistemological, theoretical, ethical, and technical trends and challenges in social research.

In 2025 we are organizing online discussion tables. In 2026 we will organize a panel at the Biannual conference of COMECSO.