Global Human Rights Hub fellows
Nadia Patricia Gutiérrez Gallardo
Blog posts by Nadia P. Gutiérrez
By: Nadia P. Gutiérrez
Published:
What if the desire to punish isn’t just institutional, but deeply personal? This reflective and powerful essay traces how punitive thinking takes root within us—and how it might be unlearned. Through personal stories and critical theory, the author invites readers to examine their own internalized ideas about justice, harm, and accountability. The result is a compelling call to imagine alternatives grounded in care, connection, and transformation.
By: Nadia P. Gutiérrez
Published:
This blog reflects on the discovery of Rancho Izaguirre, an extermination and recruitment site operated by organized crime in Mexico, and asks what it reveals about violence, power, and democracy. Drawing from personal experience and critical analysis, the author challenges comparisons to Nazi concentration camps and instead traces this violence to Mexico’s long history of racial inequality, colonial legacies, and state–cartel collusion. The post explores how forced disappearances and mass killings are not exceptions, but part of a system that treats certain lives as disposable. Ultimately, it asks readers to reconsider what democracy means in a country shaped by ongoing violence and impunity.
More about Nadia Patricia Gutiérrez Gallardo
Nadia Patricia Gutiérrez Gallardo is a doctoral student in justice and social inquiry at the School of Social Transformation. She holds a master’s degree in social sciences with a focus on education from the Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO) in Argentina. She is a member of the Laboratory of Education, Social Pedagogy, and Prisons at the University of Guadalajara. From 2020 to 2023, she served as a professor and coordinator of Professional Application Projects (PAP) at the Western Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESO).
Nadia has been an invited researcher in the project "Prisons and Neighborhoods in Circuit: Socio-Spatial Continuum, Penal Selectivity, and Territorial Concentration" of the Prison Experience at the Universidad Nacional del Litoral in Argentina. She also coordinated the Prison Higher Education Program at the University of Utah from 2022 to 2023 and is a certified facilitator of the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program.
She is a member of the Collective of Education in Prisons (GESEC) of La Plata, Argentina, a participant in the CLACSO Study Group "Neighborhoods, Families, and Prisons in Circuit," and a member of the Prison Studies Network (REEC) at the Colegio de Michoacán. Nadia is also the co-founder of the Prison Education National Network in Mexico (RECEPEM), where she served as co-coordinator from 2020 to 2024.
Fellowship year
2025–26 Cohort
