Season 1
04 Victimisation and processing our emotions
In the fourth episode, Iliria Hernández Uzueta talks with Mónica and Fabiola about victimization, feeling inferior, and how emotions such as guilt, resentment, and frustration impact collective processes of social change.
About the episode
In this episode, we talk with Iliria Hernández Uzueta about how internalized emotions—such as resentment, guilt, and frustration—can paralyze us and hinder collective work for social transformation. From her experience in Sustaining All Life and as a climate justice activist, Iliria reflects on how the logic of superiority and inferiority manifests itself in our bodies, in our histories and in our organizations. We talked about the emotional impact of the climate crisis, how to sustain ourselves collectively without bursting and how necessary it is to build daily practices of self-care, mutual listening and reflection. And yes, we also talk about men hugging lamp posts.
Mentioned in this episode:
Hugging a lamp post (Abrazado de un poste) - Lorenzo de Monteclaro
About the speakers
Iliria Hernández Unzueta
Iliria Hernández Unzueta is an ethnologist from the National School of Anthropology and holds a master's degree in communication and politics from the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana.
She is an activist and coordinator for Latin America of Sustaining all Life - commited to all forms of life, an organization dedicated to creating a space for expression and recovery from the emotional burden of the climate crisis and oppression, thus improving the effectiveness of climate justice interventions and preventing burnout.
WebsiteAbout the hosts
Mónica Moreno Figueroa
Mónica G. Moreno Figueroa is a Black, mixed-race Mexican woman who has lived in the United Kingdom for over 25 years. She is currently a Professor of Sociology at the University of Cambridge. In 2010, she co-founded the COPERA Collective, an initiative dedicated to making racism in Mexico visible and transforming it from a collective, emotional, and structural perspective. Through COPERA, she promotes public campaigns, media interventions, training programs, and consulting services to advance an anti-racist agenda.
Her research explores the lived and intersectional experience of race and racism in Mexico and Latin America, with a particular interest in anti-racism and its impact within and beyond academia. She also works on feminist theory, intersectionality, and the emotional effects of oppression. She is an expert in qualitative methods and visual methodologies and is known for fostering interdisciplinary collaborations that link critical thinking with social action.
She is currently leading the creation of the Global Racisms Institute for Social Transformation (GRIST), a space for research, collaboration, and action aimed at imagining and building anti-racist futures from a global perspective.
Website
Fabiola Fernández Guerra Carrillo
Fabiola Fernández Guerra Carrillo is a Mexican, mestizo and white woman, researcher and lecturer on issues of gender, racism, and discrimination, and social communicator. She is the founder and director of the communication agency 11.11 Cambio Social, founding partner of Comparte una Ola A.C., member of the COPERA collective and the REIR Network.
She works on issues of anti-racist communication, gender and discrimination, strategies and new anti-oppressive and anti-racist narratives, and family trees, ancestors and processes of collective healing. She is currently doing a postdoctoral degree at the Center for Transdisciplinary Research in Psychology at the UAEM.
WebsiteThe Structure Within podcast was conceived by Mónica Moreno Figueroa and produced by Fabiola Fernández Guerra Carrillo and Arfaxad Ortiz. The opening credits are voiced by Gabriela García.
