Epistemicide and Colonial Education in Brazil and South Africa: Dialogues between Sueli Carneiro and Francis Nyamnjoh

• Grant number: 25/25569-3
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Master's degree
• Start date: March 01, 2026
• End date: August 31, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Philosophy - Brazilian Philosophy
• Principal Investigator: Yara Adario Frateschi
• Grantee: Kezzy Dias Alves dos Santos
• Supervisor: Francis Beng Nyanmjoh
• Host Institution: Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas (IFCH). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: University of Cape Town (UCT), South Africa
• Associated to the scholarship: 25/00145-6 - Epistemicide and Academic Racism: Reflections on the Experiences of Black Students in the Context of Racial Quotas, BP.MS

Abstract

This research project is a continuation of my current master's research, titled "Epistemicide and Academic Racism: Reflections on the Experiences of Black Students in the Context of Affirmative Action Policies", in which I investigate how structures of domination and racial hegemony shape education and the experiences of Black students in Brazilian universities. The working hypothesis is that epistemicide-as formulated by the Brazilian philosopher Sueli Carneiro-and academic racism persist within the university, even after the implementation of racial quota policies, thus affecting Black students as legitimate subjects of knowledge. In the present project, to be developed under the supervision of Francis B. Nyamnjoh at the University of Cape Town, I propose to investigate the applicability of the concept of epistemicide to the South African context, taking Nyamnjoh's studies as the main reference. To this end, I intend to follow these steps: I) Analyze Nyamnjoh's use of the concept of epistemicide, identifying its conceptual sources and possible intersections with Sueli Carneiro's formulation. II) Analyze colonial education and the "greenhouse effect" described by Nyamnjoh in light of Carneiro's concept of epistemicide, examining their impacts on knowledge production and the formation of Black identities. III) Examine the epistemological and symbolic dimensions of colonial domination as expressed by the #RhodesMustFall movement, focusing on the articulation between epistemicide and inverted epistemology as analytical keys to understanding the persistence of colonialism in contemporary universities. IV) Assess the concept of epistemicide through a dialogue between South African and Brazilian experiences, seeking to determine whether epistemicide can be applied across different colonial contexts.