Trajetórias intelectuais de pesquisadores(as) negros(as) em Direitos Humanos : o caso do Programa de Pós-Graduação em Direitos Humanos da Universidade Federal da Paraíba

Abstract

In this paper, we seek to understand the contributions of black intellectuals to the decolonization of human rights in the field of education, based on an analysis of their trajectories in the Graduate Program in Human Rights at the Federal University of Paraíba. To do this, we start from a historical and conceptual perspective that problematizes colonization as a process of racism, epistemicide and violation of the rights of native and African peoples and points to aquilombamento as an alternative for resistance and affirmation of black identities. Next, we present the trajectories and epistemic insurgencies of some black intellectuals who stood out in the abolitionist struggle in the construction of critical and emancipatory thinking on the racial question in Brazil. In methodological terms and as a field research technique, semi-structured interviews were conducted with graduates. Our reflections sought to make it possible to discuss black belonging, identities and epistemologies, thinking about the social place of black people in Brazil. From a theoretical and epistemic point of view, based on authors such as Stuart Hall, Alex Ratts, Carlos Walter Porto-Gonçalves and Joel Bonnemaison, we discussed our understanding of the territorial formation of a people in order to bring in elements that underpin the coloniality of knowledge, using as a point of reflection the analyses made by black authors from the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries, such as Lélia Gonzalez Conceição Evaristo, Beatriz Nascimento, Thula Pires, Silvio de Almeida and Munanga, who bring the centrality of the racial - and decolonial - discussion as a way out of the identity crisis that surrounds Afro-Latin American people. We conclude that there has been significant progress in academic production on racial issues at the PPGDH-UFPB, but that there are still challenges to consolidate a black epistemological perspective that recognizes and values ancestral knowledge and the collective experiences of black subjects in the construction of knowledge.