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Curso Popular Enraizados: A Importância das Universidades Negras nos EUA, aula inédita com Dra. Gladys Mitchell-Walthour
By Nala Zuri (from enraizados.com)
Na próxima sexta-feira, às 18 horas, o Curso Popular Enraizados terá o privilégio de receber a professora Dra. Gladys Mitchell-Walthour, da North Carolina Central University, para uma aula inédita.
A Dra. Mitchell-Walthour abordará a história e a relevância das universidades historicamente negras nos Estados Unidos, destacando sua importância nos dias atuais. Essas universidades desempenham um papel crucial na educação e no empoderamento da população negra americana, oferecendo oportunidades acadêmicas e culturais que muitas vezes não estão disponíveis em outras instituições.
Em sua apresentação, a Dra. Mitchell-Walthour também discutirá as diferenças nos sistemas de admissão universitária entre os Estados Unidos e o Brasil. Nos EUA, ao contrário do Brasil, a consideração de critérios raciais nas admissões universitárias enfrenta restrições constitucionais e legais significativas. Isso torna o papel dessas universidades ainda mais vital, pois elas continuam a ser um refúgio de inclusão e excelência acadêmica para estudantes negros, numa sociedade onde a equidade racial ainda é um desafio constante.
Essa aula promete proporcionar uma reflexão sobre como as instituições de ensino podem influenciar a equidade racial e sobre o impacto das universidades negras no cenário educacional e social americano.
Após a aula haverá o lançamento do filme Hip Hop Pedagogies, gravado na última visita da Dra Gladys Mitchell ao Quilombo Enraizados, em agosto de 2023.
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IM/UFRRJ recebe delegação da Duke University e faz convite à comunidade universitária
Entre 17 e 28 de junho, a UFRRJ e o Instituto Enraizados estarão recebendo uma delegação de docentes e discentes da Duke University da North Carolina Central University (NCCU), liderados pelos professores John French e Gladys Mitchell-Walthour.
Essa visita marca um novo momento na cooperação com as duas universidades, com a renovação e celebração de termos de cooperação institucional.
Na quinta-feira, 20 de junho, a partir das 16h, no auditório do prédio da Pós-Graduação do IM-UFRRJ, será realizada uma apresentação do projeto “Culture, Activism and Education for Citizenship in Brazil & the U.S” – https://sites.duke.edu/project_duke_baixada_project/people/
A atividade é aberta à participação de membros dos três segmentos da comunidade acadêmica da UFRRJ, assim como de integrantes de entidades parceiras.
Educação e mobilidade social nos anos 50: Professor Dr John French ministrará aula especial no Quilombo Enraizados na próxima quarta-feira (19)
Na próxima quarta-feira (19), o historiador norte-americano John French, autor do livro “Lula e a Política da Astúcia: Do Metalúrgico a Presidente do Brasil”, estará no Quilombo Enraizados para ministrar a aula “A Família Silva e o Jovem Lula: Educação, Teimosia e Superação” no Curso Popular Enraizados. Ele nos ajudará a entender como a educação era vista como uma ferramenta fundamental para a mobilidade social na São Paulo industrial dos anos 1950 e 1960, especialmente para famílias de origem humilde.
A aula de John French nos ajudará a compreender o papel central da educação na mobilidade social, analisar os desafios enfrentados por famílias da classe trabalhadora em São Paulo nas décadas de 1950 e 1960, e refletir sobre as aspirações educacionais das famílias trabalhadoras e sua importância na busca por oportunidades de ascensão social. A ideia é refletir junto com John sobre como esses desafios e perspectivas se comparam com as realidades enfrentadas por famílias de trabalhadores hoje.
Hip-Hop As Education and Inspiration in Brazil and the United States
By: Axelle Miel (Political Science and Music ’24)
Project Roots
The seeds of the Hip-Hop Pedagogies: Education for Citizenship in Brazil and the United States were planted in the early 1990s when Duke historian John French met Alexandre Fortes and Álvaro Nascimento, two doctoral students from Brazil. The three connected through their shared interest in Brazilian labor and class politics and, later, their investment in the community in and around the Baixada Fluminense, a region on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro that is predominantly composed of young people and residents of African descent.
The trio stayed connected as Fortes and Nascimento finished their degrees and began teaching at the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro, and in 2016, they decided to kick off a Bass Connections project on higher education expansion in Brazil, focused specifically on the Baixada Fluminense.
Over three years, this interinstitutional project team conducted research directed toward fostering social mobility in the region. They interviewed students and faculty, carried out surveys, led focus groups and produced a 27-minute documentary. Three doctoral dissertations emerged from the project as did several undergraduate theses and yearly conferences that showcased the team’s research to both academic and public communities.
Translation and Teamwork: Giving Visibility to Decades of Activism in the Baixada Fluminense
By Travis Knoll (Ph.D. in History)
I spent my first three months on an SSRC-funded research grant in the Baixada Fluminense tracking down and interviewing regional and national Black Movement leaders who played key roles in Black Church militancy in this vital region for Brazil’s progressive Catholic Church, as well as activists who spearheaded the popular education-based college prep courses for Black and poor students.
Part of my follow-on funds has helped our partner institution’s Documentation and Imaging Center (CEDIM-UFRRJ) and their undergraduate scholarship recipients preserve these interviews for local use after my research is long done.
The first scholarship recipient, Ingrid Nogueira, began in late September 2018 while a second, Carolina Mendonça, began this January. These interviews will help my dissertation and also be made available onsite (in audio and transcribed) for future scholars of this under-studied region to both learn about important community leaders and confirm the existence of less-publicized regional points of interest.
Maria Lucia managed 24 scholarship recipients last semester alone and oversees a wide range of projects, from the digitization of transnational magazines to the preservation of Church human rights records from Brazil’s period of military rule (1964-1985). The task may seem overwhelming, but her desire to help “give visibility” to the region’s residents drives her even on the busiest of days. She explains that the historical – not just the political – is personal. “More than generating more knowledge about the region,” the UFFRJ’s agreement with Duke gives the students “a sense of belonging” to the history generated and preserved there.
The two undergraduate scholars give further voice to this sentiment. During her application process, Ingrid expressed interest in “the Baixada and feminist movements” and said that in the current climate, highlighting the contributions of “negritude” and “affirmative action” to Brazilian society and intellectual life is “indispensable.”
Carolina, who is already part of other research groups, showed interest in the Baixada Fluminense’s relationship to higher education access and religious civil society. In fact, she entered the UFRRJ’s Nova Iguacu campus to lift the cloud of stigmatization and amnesia that still shrouds the region. For her, the memories the activists put in recorded form have a “social importance” not just academic value. After a few weeks of transcribing, the experience has confirmed the necessity of taking “ownership” of the history of the region, often actively forgotten by its residents.
As they transcribe the interviews of local activists, Ingrid and Carolina flag unfamiliar acronyms and names, and I work with them to correct or clarify the transcript and send them additional scholarship, ranging from studies of colonial African-rooted religious practices, to progressive Church politics, to ongoing land struggles, to inform their transcription and help supplement their scholarly interests.
Carolina Mendonça, Maria Lúcia Alexandre and Ingrid Nogueira at the Documentation and Imaging Center at the Multidisciplinary Institute of the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro (courtesy of Travis Knoll)
Since both students are still at the beginning of their programs, they have yet to choose their specializations, but Ingrid has shown interest beyond the Baixada and social movements to Afro-Diasporic history, more broadly. Carolina, who began her CEDIM scholarship at the beginning of January, remains open to either colonial or contemporary topics. Brazil’s current political and social situation has her leaning toward studying contemporary issues, and she hopes delving into these interviews and the issues activists wrestle with will give her “a closer look at this research area (history of Baixada)” to allow her to make a “definitive choice” about her topic.
It is my hope that whatever academic decisions they end up making, their experience hearing and transcribing how the activists they are listening to perceive Brazil’s colonial past and present inequalities will prepare them with their encounters with historical records and testimonies, whatever their age.
Ingrid Nogueira transcribes an interview at CEDIM (courtesy of Travis Knoll)
For me, reading these interviews in print has allowed me to track down other potential interviews and even caused me to go back to the archive a few times to search for documents I would otherwise overlook just listening.
Overall, this process has given me advising and candidate selection experience and works toward Bass Connections’ goal of facilitating and supporting vertically integrated teamwork. These opportunities arose because of Duke and UFRRJ’s research exchange agreement (see “Duke-UFRRJ Agreement” here) and from the encouragement Bass Connections gives to collective teamwork crossing disciplinary and national boundaries.
