Circular is a collaboration between Fernanda Espinosa and Allison Corbett dedicated to working at the intersections of language justice, research, and oral history. Circular creates spaces for the memories and experiences of people to exist, be told and circulate in many different shapes. Allison and Fernanda collaborate to provide consulting or create projects grounded in the belief that seeding change requires decentering cultural, linguistic, and racial dominance.
contact us: decenteringdominance@gmail.com
Fernanda Espinosa (she/her)
Fernanda Espinosa is an oral historian and cultural practitioner. Since 2014 she has been generating, listening to, and interpreting oral histories in English and Spanish to inform creative activations that aspire to act as platforms for resistance and dialogue. Fernanda holds an MA degree in Oral History from Columbia University where her thesis was awarded the 2018 Jeffrey H. Brodsky Oral History Award for her work with the Ecuadorian diaspora in New York. In addition to her work with Circular, she works as an independent oral historian, including projects at Columbia University and the Smithsonian Institution (Archives of American Art and the National Museum of American History). Currently, Fernanda is working on her project titled In Colors, in collaboration with the Smithsonian Archives of American Art through the Oral History Association — National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship
Allison Corbett (she/her)
Allison Corbett is a Spanish-English interpreter, language justice practitioner, and oral historian from Virginia who has been based in NYC since 2013. She has over 15 years of experience interpreting in settings ranging from hospitals as a Certified Healthcare Interpreter, to grassroots community meetings and workshops. In 2016, she created The Language of Justice, an oral history project to document the experiences of language workers. In addition to the cultural work she does with Circular, Allison’s work focuses on capacity-building to support institutions in serving and being led by multilingual communities and amplifying the wisdom of fellow language justice workers. In NYC she has worked with the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs, the Department of Housing Preservation & Development, GrowNYC, North Star Fund and Columbia University, among others, and has consulted with the City of Los Angeles on Language Access implementation. She is currently the co-director of Colibrí Academy for HIV & Language Justice.