Invisible Commutes: Exploring Visual Research and Domestic Work in Bogotá and Medellín

This event is co organised by Maria Jose Arbelaez Zapata and Sarah Goldzweig, co-organisers of the Bartlett Socially Just Planning Doctoral Network and the Development Planning Unit. 

Co-creation visual methodologies have become essential for generating situated, socially engaged knowledge. Through collaborative filmmaking, photography, and oral history, researchers and communities reveal lived experiences, challenge dominant narratives, and expose and reimagine everyday urban realities.

Through collaborative filmmaking, photography, and oral history, researchers and communities reveal lived experiences, challenge dominant narratives, and expose and reimagine everyday urban realities. Invisible Commutes, directed by Dr Valentina Montoya, was developed through a long-term collaboration with domestic workers in Bogotá and Medellín. The documentary explores the complex intersections of gender, labour, and urban mobility while demonstrating the transformative potential of co-produced visual research. The screening will be followed by a conversation on the methodological and political possibilities of participatory transmedia production in ways that expand its reach and amplify its impact.

Speaker Information

Presenter: Dr Valentina Montoya (Senior Researcher at the Transport Studies Unit, University of Oxford)

Dr Valentina Montoya's current work is organised around three key themes: gender and mobilities of care; mobility, gender and race and the Right to the City; and cross-border commutes and gender. She became a non-stipendiary junior research fellow at Wolfson College (2024). Valentina previously worked as an Assistant Professor of Law at Universidad de los Andes (2021-2023), and consultant for the Transport Gender Lab at the Interamerican Development Bank (2019-2021). Her work draws on a range of qualitative and quantitative methods and currently focuses on Latin America and Africa. Valentina's doctoral research at Harvard University (2020) focused on domestic workers’ commuting experiences in Bogota and Medellin, Colombia. Valentina’s work to date has been funded by the John Fell Fund as part of the University of Oxford, the Lee Schipper Memorial Scholarship by the World Resources Institute, the John F Meyer Transportation fund from Harvard Kennedy School, and the Harvard-Los Andes fund.

Chair: Dr Rita Lambert (Associate Professor at The Bartlett Development Unit, UCL) Dr Rita Lambert is an urban development planner and architect with over twenty years of experience across academia and practice. Trained in architecture, sustainable development and holding a PhD, she has worked in Latin America, Africa and Southeast Asia. Grounded in feminist political ecology and environmental justice, her research advances planning theory and methods for understanding complex urban processes and promoting equitable futures. She focuses on revealing hidden mechanisms that produce vulnerability, especially in peripheral urbanisation and life-sustaining systems. Through participatory, action-research approaches, she supports knowledge co-production, strengthens marginalised groups, and collaborates with NGOs, civil society and policy makers to influence pro-poor development.

Discussant 1: Dr Verónica Posada (Visiting Research Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Studies, UCL), Dr Verónica Posada is an urban researcher, lecturer, and designer whose work spans creative practice, activism, and social justice. She is an Associate Researcher in Creative and Cultural Industries at the University of Derby and has collaborated with museums and cultural institutions on interdisciplinary projects connecting culture, community, and urban transformation. She completed her PhD in 2024 at CREAM, University of Westminster, with a thesis examining identity, visibility, and belonging within London’s Latin American diaspora. Her research focuses on contemporary artistic and design practices that address political and social issues, particularly those improving conditions for marginalised urban communities.

Discussant 2: PANELLIST 2 (TBC)