Epistemic and aesthetic connections in the training of Brazilian and South African professors for the construction of an anti-racist education

• Grant number: 20/06481-4
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Start date: March 01, 2021
• End date: February 28, 2023
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Education - Fundamentals of Education
• Agreement: National Research Foundation, South Africa
• Principal Investigator: Rosenilton Silva de Oliveira
• Grantee: Rosenilton Silva de Oliveira
• Principal researcher abroad: Beverley Martha Thaver
• Institution abroad: University of the Western Cape (UWC), South Africa
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Educação (FE). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated researchers: Ellen de Lima Souza ; Nosisi Percis Dlamini ; Pumla Pamella Cutalele-Maqhude ; Rosangela Malachias
• Associated scholarship(s): 21/04719-6 - Strengthening identities and rights in education, BP.TT; 21/04404-5 - Anti-racist education and teacher training: Brazil-South Africa, BP.TT; 21/04405-1 - Historical and political awareness of the difference in achieving an anti-racist education, BP.TT

Abstract

At the surface level, the distinction between Brazil and South Africa seems sharp, because both countries are nation-states that have navigated their way through very different forms of colonialism. Our working assumption is such that education is a key site that poses moral, ethical, social, philosophical, and ideological questions (KUMARAVADIVELU, B, 2017). Furthermore, it is important to note that the approach to the condition of the colonized subject (SPIVAK, 2010) has been addressed in debates and scholarship forming part of a movement of postcolonial theory (BALLESTRIN, 2013 BERNARDIONO-COSTA, MALDONADO TORRES, GROFOSGUEL, 2019). Considering this post-colonial and decolonial criticism about the production of Eurocentric epistemologies, how would be possible to understand the process of shifting differences into social inequalities and its reproduction in schooling contexts? For this answer, it is essential to increase knowledge about what decolonizing education is, in which guiding principles are brought in, which recognize the differences for the development of fair, equitable and egalitarian pedagogical practices (SANTOS, 2007). The empirical material of analysis will deal with two complementary universes: documentary analysis and interviews. Documentary analysis includes two parts: the literature review and the examination of primary sources. Specifically thinking, the central question of this research is: what does an anti-racist Education consist of? In order to answer it and considering the multidimensionality of racism in both contexts, Brazil and South Africa, three thematic Axes were defined: Axis 1 - Historical awareness and politics of difference; Axis 2 - Strengthening of identities and rights and Axis 3 - Aesthetic principles (orality, corporality and ancestry). (AU)