Projects

Umbela develops and collaborates in projects that contribute to the search for trajectories towards sustainable futures, using one or more of our theoretical-methodological approaches. Throughout our professional work we have collaborated with areas of the public and private sectors, civil society organizations and academia, prioritizing research-action-participatory work schemes on topics such as: collective agency; collaborative governance; capacity building; rural, peri-urban and urban development and territorial planning; among others.

Theoretical-methodological approaches

Transdisciplinarity is understood as the relational and integrative process of diverse types of knowledge and perspectives, emphasizing the importance of non-academic and non-disciplinary knowledge. It is driven by processes of dialogue, collaboration, and constant interaction between theory and practice, values, and interests. This collaborative effort focuses on addressing socio-environmental problems and finds in transdisciplinarity a reflective framework that makes it possible to integrate knowledge from different sectors and bodies of knowledge. Transdisciplinarity enables joint learning, new relationships of cooperation, and self-organization, and seeks to translate knowledge into action to foster transformations toward the sustainability of socio-environmental systems that foster profound and lasting changes with a vision of justice.

Juliana Merçon, Bárbara Ayala-Orozco, and Julieta A. Rosell. 2018. Experiences of Transdisciplinary Collaboration for Sustainability.
Russell AW, et al. 2008. Transdisciplinarity: Context, contradictions and capacity.
Lang DJ, et al. 2012. Transdisciplinary research in sustainability science: practice, principles, and challenges.

Transgressive learning is a form of action-oriented collective learning that seeks empowerment through deeper and more reflective ways of knowing. This approach involves proposing more radical ways of questioning and representing what transformations toward sustainability might mean in diverse contexts, and challenges what has been normalized (i.e., business as usual, the status quo). Transgressive learning focuses on generating critical thinking through frameworks that intentionally promote changes in dominant and unjust practices and on activating collective agency. These frameworks are designed to transgress and explore how other worlds are possible through caring, affectivity, and ethical responsibility.

A. Cremaschi, L. Charli-Joseph, F.I. Ciocchini. 2022. Blog on Transgressive Learning and Booklet "Ronin's Journey, a Transgressive Learning Experience"
Transgressive Learning Network (T-Learning)
T. Macintyre, M. Chaves, D. McGarry. 2018. Conceptual framework of the living spiral.
Lotz-Sisitka et al. 2015. Transformative, transgressive social learning: rethinking higher education pedagogy in times of systemic global dysfunction.

The decoloniality approach involves explicitly making visible the structures and ways of thinking that have persisted even after the independence of nations (decolonization). Decoloniality invites us to accept the diversity of knowledge, ways of thinking and understanding the world, to recognize different cultures, and to fight against oppression, the systems of domination and discrimination that have emerged under different historical configurations in different territories. This approach allows us to place the political dimension associated with situations of injustice and marginalization at the center of the analysis. To this end, it is crucial to foster schemes of collective reflexivity aimed at challenging the root causes of sustainability problems, in order to promote more horizontal and inclusive movements and structures that allow action toward the common good.

Eduardo Restrepo, Axel Rojas. 2010. Decolonial Inflection: Sources, Concepts, and Questions.
Adela Parra-Romero. 2016. Why Consider a Decolonial Turn in the Analysis of Socio-Environmental Conflicts in Latin America?

Inclusive innovation encompasses initiatives such as products, processes, programs, projects, or platforms that seek to challenge perceptions and beliefs about routines, resources, and power relations that define the unequal, unjust, and inequitable distribution of goods or services (transgressive). Inclusive innovations can be simple, accessible, and low-cost solutions aimed at increasing access to opportunities and socioeconomic capital for underprivileged, marginalized, and traditionally excluded populations (frugal). Furthermore, inclusive innovations can occur in diverse community and civil society arenas, involving change agents who experiment with social innovations to meet the community's socio-environmental needs, incorporating a diversity of knowledge and knowledge alternatives to conventional ways of understanding the world (grassroots or community-based). In this case, such innovations can be created collectively (in communities of practice, indigenous communities, or local movements) and with existing resources and materials. An example would be rainwater harvesting, so as to avoid having to pay or depend on the state or policies to receive water at home, thereby creating options that the user communities themselves can implement. Thus, social innovations can contribute to a social economy, as part of community activities and social entrepreneurship. Finally, inclusive innovations can help trigger transformative changes in a system that affect multiple scales and more than one specific group, organization, and community, thereby aspiring to impact the entire system (e.g., cultural, legal, economic, etc.).

Project portfolio

Research projects

Research projects with a collaborative approach that seek to explore our proposed theoretical and methodological approaches.

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Articulation projects

Design, facilitation, and support of participatory and collaborative processes to create spaces for dialogue and the articulation of voices, knowledge, and expertise.

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Advocacy projects

Advocacy activities to demonstrate our values and approaches in order to foster transformative narratives in both outreach and decision-making spaces.

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Media Library

Generation of diverse digital content such as blogs, podcasts, poems, academic articles, fanzines and more!

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