Counter-pedagogies of cruelty: Overcoming marginalization in Colombian accounting academia through feminist solidarity

We explore how women professors in Colombian accounting academia have drawn on feminist values and practices to resist colonial-modern-patriarchal structures by founding a research group dedicated to interdisciplinary studies. Using a Latin American feminist decolonial approach, we apply the concept of “Counter-pedagogies of cruelty” [Contra-pedagogías de la crueldad]. Methodologically, we conducted 21 in-depth interviews and collected written reflective accounts from professors – both men and women – and students who founded or participated in the research group. Our findings suggest that, to confront the norms of masculinity, these women created their own research group as a space of resistance, incorporating feminist values and practices to challenge colonial-modern-patriarchal structures. Their experience demonstrates how decolonial feminist praxis can be enacted despite institutional norms and constraints. We contribute to the literature on Feminist Organizing in Academia by adopting a decolonial perspective and amplifying Colombian and Latin American voices within the accounting field, showing how decolonial feminist principles can resist the entrenched norms of masculinity in both the accounting profession and academia.