Book Talk: Coercion, Relationships, Emancipation: on the (Im)possibilities of Juvenile Justice Centres

Matías Cordero Arce will present his recently published book, Sketches from a Juvenile Justice Centre: Coercion, Relationships, Emancipation (Palgrave Macmillan, 2026) in which, drawing on more than a decade of ongoing work as an educator in a small juvenile justice centre in northern Spain, he advances a uniquely situated perspective on juvenile justice. Through personal reflection and scholarly insight, in his book he examines broader questions of children’s and young people’s emancipation, connecting these concerns to his work as a children’s rights scholar.

Furthermore, Cordero Arce will lay out what it means to pursue emancipation in contexts shaped by overlapping forms of coercion, highlighting the central role of relationships in that pursuit. In this sense, he will present his book as a critical toolbox for practitioners, researchers, and others approaching juvenile justice and its educational claims with a reflective, questioning lens. Bringing together personal experience, professional practice, and academic analysis, he hopes it offers a compelling contribution to debates on youth, justice, education and emancipation.

Matías Cordero Arce is a Chilean independent researcher and a full-time educator, since 2014, at a Juvenile Justice Centre in the Basque Country (Spain). He holds an LLB from the Catholic University of Chile and practised law for a few years in Chile before moving to the Basque Country, where he earned his MA and PhD in Sociology of Law from the University of the Basque Country. He has presented, lectured, and published on issues related to children’s rights studies and childhood studies and is the author of Hacia un Discurso Emancipador de los Derechos de las Niñas y los Niños (Lima, Ifejant).