Global Human Rights Hub fellows
Victoria Desimoni
Blog posts by Victoria Desimoni
By: Victoria Desimoni
Published:
This thought-provoking essay examines how modern education systems quietly discipline creativity, spontaneity, and difference in the name of order and productivity. Through a personal lens, it questions what is lost when children’s imaginative worlds are treated as distractions rather than possibilities. By reframing the “monstrous” as something valuable rather than problematic, the piece invites educators and parents alike to rethink what learning could look like if we made space for curiosity, opacity, and play.
By: Victoria Desimoni
Published:
What if the monsters we feared as children were actually trying to teach us something? This blog looks at monsters from Latin American stories and folklore to explore how people have long understood their relationship with the Earth. Through figures like Pachamama, Nahuelito, and El Tío, the author shows how these beings reflect Indigenous ways of seeing land as alive, powerful, and relational — not something to be owned or controlled. Set against today’s climate and ecological crises, the post invites readers to reconsider what monsters represent and how they might help us imagine more respectful, sustainable ways of living with the planet.
More about Victoria Desimoni
Victoria Desimoni is a PhD student in education policy and evaluation at Mary Lou Fulton College for Teaching and Learning Innovation. She has earned a bachelor’s in education and religious studies from Pontificia Universidad Católica Argentina and Master’s degrees in liberal studies from Duke University and in cultural and educational policy studies from Loyola University Chicago.
With experience in teaching and in the nonprofit and philanthropic sectors, her research explores how non-formal and formal education can help undo colonial logics and imagine futures rooted in justice and pluriversality. She is interested in approaches that honor diverse, more-than-human ways of knowing and being, and sees education as a space for fostering the inner and collective transformations needed in times of planetary crisis.
Fellowship year
2025–26 Cohort
