Carmen Hernández Ojeda, PhD
she/her
Dr. Carmen Hernández Ojeda is a scholar settled in Seville, Spain. She has taught at several U.S. universities and has five years of experience teaching in study abroad programs. As a researcher, Dr. Hernández uses performance autoethnography to decolonize academia and critically examine her experiences of oppression and resistance. She has published her work in Departures in Critical Qualitative Research, International Review of Qualitative Research, and Tabula Rasa, as well as in the anthologies, Cultura, Homosexualidad y Homofobia, Feminismos Lesbianos y Queer: Representación, Visibilidad y Políticas, and Pandemic Death Discourse: Denial, Disparity and the Promise of Communication. In 2020, one of her co-authored essays was awarded the Ellis-Bochner Autoethnography and Personal Narrative Research Award. Her current projects focus on promoting autoethnography as a (self)decolonizing tool in the Canary Islands from a feminist and intersectional perspective. Likewise, Dr. Hernández studies the possibilities of performance autoethnography as a pedagogical tool.
As an activist and organizer, Dr. Hernández spent more than a decade advocating for LGTBI+ civil rights in Spain. In 2008, while serving as the coordinator of lesbian issues and as a board member of the Spanish Federation of Lesbians, Gays, Transsexuals and Bisexuals (FELGTBI+) in Madrid, she led the launch of Lesbian Visibility Day (April 26) that is now celebrated around the world.
Courses Taught
Theory and Practice in International Education
Practitioner Inquiry
Selected Publications
Hernández-Ojeda, C. (2025). Avoiding end of life in the classroom during a pandemic: A professor’s firsthand experience. In M. Alvarez (Ed.), Pandemic death discourse: Denial, disparity and the promise of communication. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company.
Hernández-Ojeda, C.G. (2021). My self-decolonizing story as a colonize(d)(r) Canary scholar/worm. Departures in Critical Qualitative Research, 10(4), 30-53. https://doi.org/10.1525/dcqr.2021.10.4.30
Pérez Flores, L., Fernández Hernández, P., Hernández Ojeda, C.G., & Núñez Rodríguez, X. (2021). Cuerpo y territorio: Conversaciones desde el feminismo descolonial canario. Tabula Rasa, 38, 133-154. https://doi.org/10.25058/20112742.n38.06
Alexander, B. K., Stephenson, A., Alhayek, K., Israsena Twishime, P, Sutton, T., Hernandez-Ojeda, C., & Moreira, C. (2019). “I’m sorry my hair is blocking your smile”: A performative assemblage and intercultural dialogue on the politics of hair and place. International Review of Qualitative Research, 12(4), 339-362. [This piece received the 2020 Ellis-Bochner Autoethnography and Personal Narrative Research Award] https://doi.org/10.1525/irqr.2019.12.4.339
Selected Presentations
Pérez Flores, L., & Hernández Ojeda, C. (2024, May 30). La descolonización autoetnográfica como
propuesta pedagógica para la transformación social [Conference presentation]. XIII Congreso Internacional de Educación y Gerencia Avanzada (CIEG 2024), Villablino, Spain.
Hernández-Ojeda, C. G. (2021, July 27-30). Lo que la pandemia de la COVID-19 me enseñó sobre las prácticas feministas de (auto)cuidado en la investigación autoetnográfica [Conference presentation]. 7º Congreso Internacional de Antropología AIBR (Antropólogos Iberoamericanos en Red), Vila-Real, Portugal.
Hernández-Ojeda, C. (2021, May 27-31). Avoiding End of Life in the Classroom During a Pandemic: A Professor’s Firsthand Experience [Conference presentation]. 71st Annual International Communication Association Conference (ICA).
Current Research Interests
Performance autoethnography and pedagogy
Canarian decolonial feminism
Canarian diaspora
Education
- PhD, Communication, University of Massachusetts Amherst
- MA, Communication, University of Hartford
- BA, Journalism, Universidad Complutense de Madrid
