Defying the Odds in Rural Colombia?
Daniela Hernández Silva


In the first episode of Flux, Daniela Hernández Silva takes listeners to a faraway place in the Colombian countryside. Here, reality is transformed. She uses magical realism to create a composite character called Jose. Jose gives voice to the hundreds of people Daniela spoke with during her five-years of ethnographic fieldwork.

By raising Jose’s voice and listening to what he has to tell us, Daniela offers an alternative reading of Escuela Nueva, the award-winning rural education program founded in Colombia. She challenges policy assumptions about rural education in Colombia as a way to begin to change the narrative. Daniela also questions academic conventions and critiques the legitimacy of academic knowledge over local experience. The episode is a sonic journey unlike anything we’ve ever aired.

Credits

Today’s episode was written, edited, and produced by Daniela Hernández Silva. Senior producer was Johannah Fahey. Producers were Brett Lashua and Will Brehm. Flux theme music by Joseph Minadeo of Pattern Based music.

Voices:

  • Narrator and Researcher: Daniela Hernández Silva
  • Young Jose: Pablo Rivas
  • Adult Jose: Guillermo Rivas
  • Gabriel García Márquez: Gustavo Fischman

Music and Sounds:

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