Irina Carlota Silber

This virtual workshop champions anthropologists and academic leaders from Nicaragua, standing in the crossfire of government repression and neoliberal constraints, as they assess the impact of these policies on the pedagogies that define the Universidad Centroamericana in Managua. Building upon international collaborations, the workshop aims to theorize an anthropological liberatory politics of education and offer a university manifesto that builds upon an ethnographically predicated call for academic solidarity 3.0. A key objective is to craft an edited volume entitled University under Fire, in which three strands of Central American theorization and anthropological research intertwine in novel ways: first, the imaginary of Central America expands beyond the troubled Northern Triangle countries to include Nicaragua in a regional analysis; second, it leverages interdisciplinary scholarship on social movements, insurgency, and postwar to address a lacunae in anthropology’a critical ethnographic analysis of the university; and third, the contributions of Central American university martyrs and theorists are brought into conversation with decolonial and intersectional anthropology. The resulting volume, to be published simultaneously in English and Spanish, offers a pathway for alternative knowledge production and a transformative vision of the future for the discipline and for the role of the university in Central America and beyond. Ultimately, this is a timely, diverse and inclusive workshop guided by a commitment to public anthropology on the frontlines.