Histórias / Stories

O que é pesquisa? Onde a pesquisa é necessária ou sequer permitida? Como podemos construir conhecimento de forma relacional, inclusiva e comunitária sem perder a relevância? E, mais ainda, o que significa ser relevante nos dias de hoje? Desde o início desta pesquisa, venho tentando encontrar maneiras de dialogar com as pessoas e aprender com elas sem necessariamente extrair algo delas. Como pergunta Tuck (2013, p. 233): “Como desenvolver uma ética da pesquisa que diferencie

Sempre fui uma pessoa criativa. Desde criança, a imaginação fazia parte da forma como eu me relacionava com o mundo. No entanto, no início deste projeto, minha intenção era seguir um caminho inteiramente teórico. Sabe como é? Ser séria pela primeira vez (ironia aqui...) e assumir o papel da pesquisadora “de verdade”. Anos atrás, um colega me disse: “O que você faz é filosofia, não ciência.” Outro comentou, referindo-se às implicações políticas do meu campo de pesquisa: “Panf

Acredito que o conhecimento seja uma jornada sem fim. Aprendemos desde o momento em que nascemos até o dia em que fechamos os olhos pela última vez. Por isso, considero essencial cultivar a humildade ao longo da vida, para que não percamos nenhuma oportunidade de reconhecer o que ainda não sabemos e de aprender com isso. Aprendemos com nossas próprias experiências e também com as dos outros, quando estamos dispostos a escutar. Em relação ao gênero, obtenho aprendizados valio

Ontem, fui a um concerto. Uma grande amiga me convidou para ir ao Royal Conservatory of Music, em Toronto, que, na verdade, é uma escola. O concerto apresentou três obras de música contemporânea, executadas por uma pequena orquestra composta apenas por estudantes. A primeira peça, composta por uma aluna de pós-graduação da instituição, estava sendo apresentada pela primeira vez naquele dia. Eu esperava algo mais próximo do que costumamos chamar de “música clássica”, talvez c

This is not a "goodbye" Nature published an article on decolonizing academia (McAllister et al., 2025). Indigenous scholars suggested eight steps to decolonize academia in North America. According to them, you must care for and promote change in your own space first, then consider change and improvement for the rest of the world. It is feasible and practical to start small, and the article argues that most Western initiatives to decolonize knowledge have these “White savior”

Participating in an ayahuasca ceremony can be an act of curiosity in the first place; generally, it is. In my case, a friend invited me to a temple, and I accepted out of curiosity. I heard a lot about beautiful experiences, people learning about themselves and undergoing deep processes of transformation after taking the tea just once. I was excited. She took me to a Santo Daime temple. This place had a huge, beautiful garden. Someone there told me that volunteers did all the

Conheça/Know Jader Esbell: https://enciclopedia.itaucultural.org.br/pessoas/65153-jaider-esbell My most recent burracheira… Ane Molina I am at the ritual setting, and it is all I remembered: the peak of a hill, nothing but stars around me, the smell of the cerrado and these beautiful, kind people who make me feel at home. The ritual begins as usual: the two conductors present the theme of the night (South American spirituality, history, and culture), start talking about their

Imagine was the name. Yes, believe it. Mother from a country in the Global South, father from a poor and conflict-ridden part of Europe. Their father’s name was Ryan Ryan (who, in their right mind, would name their son “Ryan” when the surname is already “Ryan”?). Their mother’s name was “Inni,” which means lonely water. Inni remained that lonely water for a long time, always alone, always in motion. Until, later in life, they encountered this completely uncomfortable immigran

No. And this is the short answer. I just concluded a chapter about the concept of positionality, its limitations and how these limitations could be explored and overcome by Afro-pindorâmico knowledge, in that case, Travesti theory. I will not repeat the chapter here, as this space is to deposit all the universe of thoughts that did not fit in my dissertation. Here I want to talk about my positionality and how my inability to state it clearly led me to value my origins and the

In Brazilian Portuguese, encruzilhada means crossroads. But the encruzilhada is much more than that. At the encruzilhada , ordinary life meets the divine. Anyone in Brazil (even the most devout Christian) will, at some point in their life, leave an offering at the encruzilhada . They are trying to reach an ambiguous entity that does not care whether the human believes in the patriarchal god or belongs to the African Brazilian religion. Exu cares only about the offer made a

A Terceira Margem do Rio (Rosa, 2001) was written by João Guimarães Rosa, one of Brazil’s most celebrated writers. His work is full of regional and popular references, and his language is heavily grounded in Brazilian orality and neologisms, making his writing virtually impossible to translate (at least with some fidelity to the original meaning). Despite that, he was widely published outside Brazil. You can read this particular tale in French and English. [1] In the short

Once, Exu was challenged to choose between two gourds for a trip to the market. One gourd contained goodness, while the other held evil. One represented medicine, and the other, poison. One was associated with the body, and the other with the spirit. One was what is visible, while the other was the unseen. One was spoken word, and the other represented what would never be said. Exu immediately asked for a third gourd. He opened all three and mixed the contents of the first tw

I really love the idea, from Lucas Cassidy Crawford (2008), that we are “too much to be perceived” (p. 140). The author co-opts the tangible invisibility of trans, queer, and non-binary people and transforms our journey through life into something mysterious, magical, and complex enough to unsettle a cis-White-normative understanding of any queer identity. For me, the way he puts it is like being a witch, a fairy, Exu , a Pombagira [1] , or any enchanted creature that comes

Para ler em português brasileiro, clique aqui. Last weekend I was in Toronto for the Nuit Blanche. This event spans an entire night (7 pm to 7 am), during which you can visit a multitude of art events, installations, performances, and shows, all linked by the year's central theme (this year, “reading the city through art”). My dear and brilliant friend Renata Moreira was one of the curators. As she is a queer art curator, I was certain that her work would have some impact on

Para ler em português brasileiro, clique aqui. What is research? Where is research needed or even allowed? How can we build (inclusive and communal) knowledge relationally and remain relevant? Where is it considered relevant nowadays? Since the beginning of my research, I have been trying to find a way to talk with people and to learn from them without necessarily taking from them. “How do we develop an ethics for research that differentiates between power—which deserves a de

Para ler em português brasileiro, clique aqui. I have been a creative person since I was a child. However, at the beginning of this project, I intended to go entirely theoretical. You know? Being serious for the first time (irony here…) and playing the “real” scholar. Years ago, a colleague told me, “What you do is philosophy, not science.” Another colleague said, about the political implications of my research field, “Pamphleteering is not science.” Today, I can formulate an

Para ler em português brasileiro, clique aqui. I believe that knowledge is an endless journey. We learn from the moment we are born until the day we close our eyes for the last time. This is why it is essential to cultivate humility throughout our lives—so we do not miss any opportunity to recognize what we do not yet know and learn from it. We learn from our own experiences and from others’ when we are open to listening. Regarding gender, I gain valuable insights from my own

Para ler em português brasileiro, clique aqui. Yesterday, I went to a concert. A dear friend invited me to the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, which is, in fact, a school. The concert featured three pieces of contemporary music performed by a small orchestra of all students. The first piece, composed by a grad student of the institution, was being played for the first time that day. I was expecting some kind of “classical”, maybe with more rhythm, but never something