Disobedient Epistemologies and Decolonial Histories: A Forum on Latin American Praxis

Duen Sacchi is a trans guaxu artist and writer. He was raised in the community of Aguaray, Gran Chaco, Argentina. The national registry of his birth indicates 1974 in colonizer years. He has presented his drawings, sculptures, and texts in different museums and institutions across Abya Yala and Europe. His book Ficciones Patógenas was published in Spain with Brumaria-Albúm and in Argentina with Rara Avis. He was a domestic worker for more than a quarter century, and he now participates in antiracist Indigenous, trans, and travesti movements.

Dana Galán / David Aruquipa is a business manager with an MA in gender studies and twenty years of experience in human rights activism. He has published work that visibilizes the contributions of the LGBTI population in popular festivals and is author of the books China Morena: Memoria histórica travesti, Memorias colectivas: Miradas a la historia del Movimiento TLGB de Bolivia, and Reflexiones sobre la Diversidad Sexual en comunidades indígenas, among others. He is the Andean regional secretary of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, and Intersex Association for Latin America and the Caribbean (ILGA LAC), and led the suit for civil unions for same sex people in Bolivia, becoming with his partner Guido Montaño Durán, the first such couple officially recognized by the Plurinational State of Bolivia.

Ochy Curiel was born in the Dominican Republic and currently lives in Colombia. She is a member of the Grupo Latinoamericano de Estudios, Formación y Acción Feminista (GLEFAS) and Tremenda Revoltosa, batacada feminista. She is a singer-songwriter and an activist in the lesbian feminist, antiracist, autonomist feminist, and decolonial feminist movements. She has a PhD and MA in social anthropology, a specialization in higher education and the social sciences, and a BA in social work. She is a teacher and researcher at the Universidad Nacional and the Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá, Colombia. She is the author of numerous articles and essays, as well as the book La nación heterosexual: Análisis del discurso jurídico y el régimen heterosexual desde la antropología de la dominación (2013).

Marlene Wayar was born in 1968 in Córdoba, Argentina. She is a professor of ceramics and received a degree in social psychology from the Universidad Popular Madres de Plaza de Mayo. A travesti activist, she was a foundational member of the trans movement in Argentina along with Nadia Echazí and Lohana Berkins. She is the founder and general manager of Futuro Trans and cofounder of numerous travesti organizations and cooperatives, including the publication El Teje. She has hosted television programs, curated numerous gatherings and festivals, and is author of Travesti: Una teoría lo suficientemente buena (2018) and Diccionario Travesti: De la T a la T (2019). In 2020 she was awarded a PhD honoris causa by the Universidad Nacional de Rosario.