Juliana Ramirez-Muñoz (Full HiSS Scholar)

Thesis title: Bridging the Fragmented Self: Autohistoria-Teoría on Dialogue, Identity, and Spirituality in Conflict Transformation (working title)

Biography

Background

I am a Ph.D. student in Health in Social Sciences, fully funded by a HiSS Scholarship. My work focuses on social dialogue and bridging, situated at the intersections of humanities, social sciences, and writing. I bring over 12 years of experience in peacebuilding, conflict resolution, and gender work across Colombia, Ecuador, and Chile, working with NGOs, public sector institutions, think tanks, and grassroots organizations.

I hold a BA in Economics, a Master’s in Economics, and a Master’s in Public Policy, alongside various studies in creative writing. My educational background informs my interests, mirroring the sense of fragmentation in my own self. My exploration lies in creative, holistic, and boundary-crossing research that challenge forms of binary thinking and highlights the metaphysics of interconnectedness. I draw inspiration of Gloria Anzaldua’s ‘spiritual activism’, as a form of spirituality for social change, that recognizes the differences between us and works on commonalities as catalysts for transformation for social and planetary justice.

Through my research, professional work, and personal inquiry, I engage with questions of identity and fragmentation, and how these relate to broader social divisions and conflicts in society. I see dialogue and bridging as tools for both self and social understanding, and necessary to imagine/write/create a world of ‘belonging without othering’ (Othering and Belonging Institute). I explore dialogue through silence, the processes of mind and thought, embodiment, spirituality, and the connection between the self and the collective.

Qualifications

Academic education:

  • Economist (2013) (Universidad de los Andes, Colombia)
  • Masters in Economy (2015) (Universidad de los Andes, Colombia)
  • Masters in Public Policy (2015) (Universidad de los Andes, Colombia)

 

Further education, Courses and Seminars:

  • Earth cooling technologies, Multispecies digital performance workshop. Eugenio Tiselli and Barbara Santos (2022)
  • Narrative writing. Universidad Central (2022).
  • Gender, Fiscal Policy and Economics. Universidad Javeriana (2019)
  • Creative Writing. Escuela de Escritores, España (2018; 2024)
  • Social Impact Project Design. Intelligent Social Investment (2018)
  • Who takes care in the cities. ECLAC (2018)

 

Responsibilities & affiliations

  • Member of Valiente es Dialogar -Dare to Dialogue-  Dialogue initiative in Colombia
  • Member and founder of Club de Lectura de Mujeres Latinas in Edinburgh

Open to PhD supervision enquiries?

No

Research summary

Dialogue, Bridging, Autohistoria-teoria, Writing-as-world-making, Self, Identity

 

Current research interests

In my research, I employ autohistoria-teoría (Gloria Anzaldúa) to critically explore the relationship between experiencing fragmentation in the self and the construction of identity around dialogue and bridging differences. Autohistoria-teoría is a "hybrid genre" that fuses personal narrative, theoretical discourse, autobiographical vignettes, and literary writing (Anzaldúa, Light in the Dark). Drawing on my own experiences of self-fragmentation, my background in peacebuilding and social dialogue in Colombia, and my personal and spiritual inquiry, I explore the role of the Self in Dialogue and the threads that connect the Self to the collective. My research engages with silence and fragmentation as forms of inquiry and brings power and spirituality into the understanding of notions of dialogue and conflict transformation.

Affiliated research centres

Current project grants

Full HiSS Scholar

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