Political-affective letters against racism in postgraduate studies

Abstract

The Laws n. 10.639/2003 and 12.711/2012 had a profound impact on Brazilian universities, whether by the significant increase in black students at universities, by the demand for an afro-centered curriculum and black teachers, or by the inclusion of the subject of Education for Ethnic-Racial Relations in undergraduate courses, to meet the demands of anti-racist basic education. However, Brazilian postgraduate studies continue to be a predominantly white space, both in the corporeality of teachers and students, and in the Eurocentric knowledge that marks the epistemicide of knowledge produced by black intellectualities. Therefore, this essay seeks to contemplate different personal experiences-narratives in postgraduate studies using the letter as a political-methodological narrative resource. In this way, I assume my autobiographical narrative as a student, researcher and teacher to discuss university racism in postgraduate studies by writing letters to my advisor, to research institutions and to the students of the discipline I offered, contexts in which the letter acquires therapeutic-imaginative, manifesto-interpellative and/or pedagogical-affective purposes. Finally, I consider that anti-racist education necessarily involves an afro-centered ethical-political-aesthetic-poetic curriculum that embraces black experiences-narratives and promotes human, intellectual and affective development in each person.