Ana Stela de Almeida Cunha

Graduated in Linguistics in 1998, and PhD in African Linguistics in 2003, both at the University of São Paulo, I have always taken my career to two distinguished but parallel paths: an academic life, as for intellectual production; and a more pragmatic life, as for creator and coordinator of social projects, especially focused on education, ethnically marked in communities (descendants of slaves in Cuba and Brazil; and African immigrants in Portugal). I have got scholarships from research agencies since my graduation, which allowed me to develop a work focused on contacts (linguistics, religious). In 2004, I was contemplated via public service announcement with the project ?Falando em Quilombo? (Speaking of Quilombo), sponsored by Petrobras Cultural Program, which aims to implement an educational method suitable to quilombolas area in Maranhão. During the year of 2004, I lived in one of those quilombos and in 2006, I was appointed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Brazil (CAPES, Brazil) as a lecturer at the University of Havana, in Cuba. In 2008, I was approved by FCT for a Post PhD in Anthropology. Since then I have published in the areas of Linguistics (Education) and Anthropology. I have edited 4 books (one in the UK, Sean Kingston Press), and written 6 book chapters (four of them internationally; one at the Chicago University Press). I have also written a review in an international specialized magazine (religion), 5 papers in magazines with international peer review, as well as organized seminars and international workshops and more than 50 paper presentations in international conferences. I have taught at the University of Sao Paulo (USP), at the Universidad de La Habana, and at ICS (Portugal) and developed educational projects in NGOs (indigenous areas in the Amazon and quilombola communities). I have managed to obtain financial resources from private companies to implement projects (social and academic): four of them from Petrobras S/A, one from Banco do Nordeste (Northeast Bank), two from Ministry of Culture. Two from these projects in Visual Anthropology received awards by UNESCO (Immaterial Heritage). Currently, I am conducting field research in Congo (DRC), Brazil and Cuba, consolidating an academic career focused on relations between the Iberian world and the African presence in the Americas. (Source: Lattes Curriculum)