Crossing boundaries and connecting histories, 'Across the Meadows' is a podcast where Cambridge scholars and friends reflect on their educational journeys and their evolving sense of belonging—at the University of Cambridge and in the world.
Hosted by Anna Maria Del Fiorentino, a PhD candidate at the Faculty of Education, each episode is recorded in the open air of Grantchester Meadows—a place loved by many across generations. Seated among the grasses, guests share stories of how identity, memory, and aspiration shape their lives, studies, and futures.
ewa nïara, Railine, and Wertton | Transnational Anti-Racism in Education
In this episode of Across the Meadows, I speak with ewa nïara, Railine Simões Gomes, and Wertton Matias, visiting scholars from Brazil at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, as part of the Anti-Racism in Education Programme. Supported by the Abdias Nascimento exchange programme (CAPES), they share their research, trajectories, and experiences of being in Cambridge. This conversation is conducted in Portuguese.Recorded in Grantchester Meadows over two days (17 and 18 March), this conversation brings together perspectives from anthropology, education, language, and the arts. Across the discussion, questions of ancestrality, identity, and knowledge emerge not only as themes, but as lived and embodied experiences that shape their work.We reflect on what it means to move across academic and geographical spaces while remaining connected to one’s histories, communities, and ways of knowing.Hosted by Anna Maria Del Fiorentino.
8 Aug 2025
Juliana Spadotto | Theatre, Social Change, and Breaking Family Cycles
What is the role of theatre in driving social change? For Juliana Spadotto, her desire to reconnect with theatre since leaving Brazil was the spark that led her to pursue a master’s degree at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge.
In her research, she brought in an example from Jardim Romano, a neighbourhood in São Paulo that was under water for three months due to floods, where community-led theatre became a form of resistance and denunciation.
Actress and stage director Juliana shares her life journey, the path that led her to Cambridge, and the complexities of belonging within a place that many perceive only from the bottom up.
An honest conversation about scholarship, family, breaking generational cycles and new beginnings — recorded for the first time in our mother tongue, Brazilian Portuguese, with English subtitles.
4 Jul 2025
Jenson Deokiesingh | Bordered Identities, Emotions and Where We Stand
Scholar Jenson Deokiesingh discusses how his research on race and lived experiences of Caribbean English teachers informs his self-discovery, exploring critical race theory and decolonial thought in this interview.
9 May 2025
Heidy M. Pérez-Cordero | Bridging Worlds, Immigration, and Belonging
Being an immigrant shaped her pursuit of belonging within new spaces and communities in both the US and the UK. Whether bridging realms between teachers and students or between Cambridge University and local communities, Heidy M. Pérez-Cordero's trajectory—as a school drama teacher, pre-school teacher, heritage language teacher, and more recently as a PhD candidate—is her way of navigating and claiming her own sense of belonging in the world.In this first episode of Across the Meadows, I bring my friend and peer—now at the very end of her PhD journey at the Faculty of Education, and also from Murray Edwards College—to share her educational path and life stories, including her experience of working with Brazilian Augusto Boal, creator of the Theatre of the Oppressed, inspired by Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Heidy’s PhD research focuses on the lived experiences and identities of immigrant heritage language teachers in the UK. She explores whether becoming a heritage language teacher is an ‘accidental’ outcome for immigrants like herself—an assumption she initially held, but came to question through her research—as well as the ethnic penalties they face, their resilience in the labour market, and the deeper meanings behind their professional paths.
6 May 2025
(Trailer) Across the Meadows
Trailer for Across the Meadows, a podcast hosted by Anna Maria Del Fiorentino and recorded in the Grantchester Meadows.
🎼 West End Blues — composed by Joseph Nathan 'King' Oliver, performed by Gui O’Connor.
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14,930
Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025
Podcast Authority Score: 18 / 100
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6
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0
YouTube
72
Engagement
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