Jana Vasil’eva

I grew up in Latvia and Germany. My path has brought me to Mexico, where I have been living for more than ten years and working in the co-creation of meaningful knowledge for grass roots organizational efforts from feminist perspectives. In my research, I collaborated with social organizations in the state of Mexico in order to grasp their understandings and struggles against femicide violence. For five years, I worked in the programmatic area at Oxfam Mexico, where I established the programmatic line on care work and inequality with Carolina Pimentel. I coordinated this programmatic line for more than two years before returning to Germany to respond to the intensive care needs in my family whilst my mother was going through a health crisis as well as to accompany my aunt in her process of progressing disease and death. This was a formative experience, which shifted my worldview profoundly.

Upon returning to Mexico, I searched for ways to support the organizational efforts of long-term unpaid care workers in the struggle for their rights and more just care arrangements. This is how I found my way into participatory action research and a doctoral thesis at the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (campus Mexico), which supports the creation of Yo Cuido, a grass roots collective of unpaid full-time care workers in Mexico, Chile, Perú and Argentina with a focus on designing and implementing collaborative learning, mutual care and collective action for integral care policies in these contexts.

Podcast series with unpaid care workers who organize in Yo Cuido México (in collaboration with NoFM Radio, Alta-Voz Cultural A.C. and Red de Cuidados en México):

Escucha con Cuidado (Listen Carefully). Online: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/alta-voz-social-y-cultural/episodes/Escucha-Con-Cuidado---Cuidado--venimos-marchando-erqgfc

Selected publications:

Vasil’eva, J. (2024, March 25). Grass roots organizing with unpaid care workers for caring societies in Mexico and Latin America. Hot or Cool Institute.

Vasil’eva, J. (2023, March 1). We cannot remain in the shadows – Reflections on Democratizing Knowledge and Voice with Unpaid Care Workers in Mexico. Social Publishers Foundation.

Vasil’eva, J. (2021, August 31). Soziale Bewegunden für den Aufbau öffentlicher Care Systeme in Lateinamerika, translation: Social movements for public care systems in Latin America. Care Revolution.

Garfías, M. & Vasil’eva, J. (2020). 24/7. De la reflexión a la acción, por un México que cuida, translation: 24/7. From reflection to action, for a Mexico that cares. Friedrich-Ebert Stiftung.

Vasil’eva, J., Centmayer, H., Gabriel, L. & Del Valle Dávila, O. (2016). Violencia de Género y Feminicidio en el Estado de México – La percepción y las acciones de la sociedad civil, translation: Gender Based Violence and Femicide in the State of Mexico – Perceptions and actions of organized civil society. CIDE.