Across the Meadows

Juliana Spadotto | Theatre, Social Change, and Breaking Family Cycles

What is the role of theatre in driving social change? For Juliana Spadotto, her desire to reconnect with theatre since leaving Brazil was the spark that led her to pursue a master’s degree at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge. In her research, she brought in an example from Jardim Romano, a neighbourhood in São Paulo that was under water for three months due to floods, where community-led theatre became a form of resistance and denunciation. Actress and stage director Juliana shares her life journey, the path that led her to Cambridge, and the complexities of belonging within a place that many perceive only from the bottom up. An honest conversation about scholarship, family, breaking generational cycles and new beginnings — recorded for the first time in our mother tongue, Brazilian Portuguese, with English subtitles.

Jenson Deokiesingh | Bordered Identities, Emotions and Where We Stand

An intersection of race, accent, and nationality has shaped Jenson’s trajectory in the world, but his research on racisms — in the plural — based on the lived experiences of English teachers from the Caribbean has also become a journey of self-discovery. Jenson is an international scholar, originally from Trinidad and Tobago and now living in Singapore. He previously completed his PhD at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge. In this episode, Dr. Deokiesingh shares moments from his life and work, and how deeply intertwined they are. We speak about critical race theory and decolonial thought — and how these helped him re-signify family, identity, and his relationship with the world. He reflects on where we stand as scholars, and how embracing methodology and emotion together can be intellectually and personally liberating.

Heidy M. Pérez-Cordero | Bridging Worlds, Immigration, and Belonging

Being an immigrant shaped her pursuit of belonging within new spaces and communities in both the US and the UK. Whether bridging realms between teachers and students or between Cambridge University and local communities, Heidy M. Pérez-Cordero's trajectory—as a school drama teacher, pre-school teacher, heritage language teacher, and more recently as a PhD candidate—is her way of navigating and claiming her own sense of belonging in the world.In this first episode of Across the Meadows, I bring my friend and peer—now at the very end of her PhD journey at the Faculty of Education, and also from Murray Edwards College—to share her educational path and life stories, including her experience of working with Brazilian Augusto Boal, creator of the Theatre of the Oppressed, inspired by Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Heidy’s PhD research focuses on the lived experiences and identities of immigrant heritage language teachers in the UK. She explores whether becoming a heritage language teacher is an ‘accidental’ outcome for immigrants like herself—an assumption she initially held, but came to question through her research—as well as the ethnic penalties they face, their resilience in the labour market, and the deeper meanings behind their professional paths.

(Trailer) Across the Meadows

Trailer for Across the Meadows, a podcast hosted by Anna Maria Del Fiorentino and recorded in the Grantchester Meadows. 🎼 West End Blues — composed by Joseph Nathan 'King' Oliver, performed by Gui O’Connor.