A critical ethnographic research developed at ALEX -Program for the Development of Autonomous Foreign Language Learning- at Universidad Nacional de Colombia is summarized in this article. This study provides a description of some general characteristics of directors’, teachers’ and students’ subjective experiences related to autonomy in learning and teaching processes. Through 27 interviews, the researchers identified first, beliefs some curricular actors have about autonomy; second, the relationship between these beliefs and the previous experiences that could have made them more or less autonomous, depending on the role they have had in different contexts; third, problems in regard to this matter; fourth, feelings towards those problems; and fifth, actions that can be undertaken to promote autonomy or to be more autonomous. Besides that, a group of attributes dealing with this concern was got among the findings of the study and a reflection towards the way theory can be enriched when the participants’ voice is part of its principles, giving them the opportunity to act on the multiple relations of domination in which all, as teachers, students or directors, participate.