Research Interests

Embodied epistemologies and Land Pedagogy; creative inquiry in social practice; emancipatory feminisms and other decolonizing processes; intergenerational, multimodal storytelling and ritual; reciprocal care and repair work.

Biography

I work as a transdisciplinary and artivist scholar, interested in how we carry, migrate, and recreate liberatory forms of learning, being, and doing in community that advance a common struggle for multispecies life.

As part of this creative inquiry, I develop the concept of Seed Pedagogics, a face-to-face political-ethical education framework I first examined in the Zapatista context. Currently, I engage with seed pedagogics in my native Mexico and current home in California. This has led me to work with regional Indigenous resurgence around cultural and language revitalization as well as land-back efforts, particularly with the Muchia Te’ Indigenous Land Trust in Rammaytush territory.

Working in community education in Mexico, Lebanon, and the U.S. for over 30 years has taught me the importance of building collective knowledges that grow our socioecological health and memory through diverse creative and ancestral practices that ground us in our connection to our planet, our Mother Earth.

At CIIS, I teach critical pedagogy across disciplines with an intergenerational B.A. Completion Program since 2007, in the Ecology, Spirituality, and Religion (part of Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness) and Women’s Spirituality graduate programs since 2024.

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

B.A. in Art, Yale University

Awards & Distinctions

World Anthropology Union Congress scholarship award, 2025

Mesa Refuge Writing Fellow, 2022; Santa Fe Art Institute’s Revolution Residency, 2022

Mexican National Council for Humanities, Sciences, and Technology (CONAHCyT/SECHCyT) Doctoral 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 Marshall-Allison Award, 1993

University of Southern California Mexican-American Association Award, 1989-1990

Courses

Liberatory Learning

Thinking, and Writing

Introduction to Social Ecologies

Decolonizing Worldviews

Introduction to Research Methods

SUS Senior Capstone Project

Global Stories and Connections

Movements for Social Change

Politics of Food

The Artist in Society

Decolonizing Ecologies

Feminisms of Abya Yala

Integral Co-Leadership

Creating Communities & Coalitions

Self & Society

Histories of Capitalism and our Modern Era

The Science, Art, and Ethics of Foraging

Dias de Muertos: study-trip to Oaxaca

Zapatismo: study-trip to Chiapas

Decolonial Wisdom: the Pedagogy of Body-Territory

Native Bees & their Territories: study-trip to Veracruz

Publications

Sáenz, C. M. (2024). Sowing Indigenous Autonomy: building a common political-ethical territory of struggle through Zapatista Seed Pedagogics. Latin American Perspectives, Indigenous Autonomies Confronting Contemporary Capitalism: Part 2. Volume 51, Issue 5. DOI: 10.1177/0094582X241288861

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. Corazón Nosótrico: a Zapatista Seed Pedagogics, in GRIETAS: a Journal of Zapatista Thought and Horizons, issue 1, Autonomy from Below and to the Left in the U.S. (Spring/Summer 2022): 175-191. 

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, 2008.

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