María Belén Garrido with Fabricio Rodríguez (left) and Miriam Bartelmann (right) at the ABI.
| © ABIMaría Belén Garrido visits the ABI in Freiburg
From 16 to 18 July 2025, Dr. María Belén Garrido, Director of the Regional Institute on the Study and Practice of Strategic Nonviolent Action in the Americas, and researcher at FLACSO Ecuador, visited the Arnold Bergstraesser Institute (ABI) in Freiburg.
The institute she heads connects scientific, political and civil society actors throughout Latin America who are committed to peace, social justice and human rights – with a special focus on nonviolent transformation processes.
During her visit, Garrido discussed potential future collaborations with ABI researchers Fabricio Rodríguez, Miriam Bartelmann and Alke Jenss, coordinator of the ABI cluster Contested Governance. The focus was on exchanging ideas about research on nonviolent action and conflict transformation in the Global South and how these topics can be integrated into international and local debates.
A highlight of her stay was the presentation of her book ‘Rupturas presidenciales: las acciones de la fuerza pública ante movimientos noviolentos del Ecuador en 1997, 2000 y 2005’ at the University of Freiburg. In the ensuing discussion, the role of state security forces and the political significance of nonviolent civil movements in Ecuador were critically examined – a contribution to the in-depth analysis of authoritarian and democratic fault lines in the South American context.
María Belén Garrido recently co-authored an entry titled: “Sumak Kawsay. A decolonial perspective on nonviolent resistance” for the Virtual Encyclopaedia of the research network ‘Postcolonial Hierarchies in Peace and Conflict’, funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMTFR). We thank Maria Belén Garrido for her visit and look forward to further cooperation in research and knowledge dialogue.