How Extensión works

In the second part of a two episode podcast, Professor Ana Laura López de la Torre and Sophie Hope discuss the specific role and function of ‘extensión’ at the Universidad de la República, Uruguay.

All academic activity is organised under 3 essential functions: teaching, research and extensión. This last function - loosely translated as ‘outreach’ - is a distinctive element of the Latin-American university movement. Extensión mandates public universities to serve society and the public good. Over the years, the way this has been interpreted and put in practice has changed alongside ideas of democracy, equality, social justice and inclusion. Today, ‘critical extensión’ is a complex field of theoretical and methodological innovation, connected to the fields of critical pedagogy, southern epistemologies and decolonial thought.

Ana Laura talks us through this function of the university and gives us a detailed account of current project working with students and an old site of detention and torture during the dictatorship.