About US

It is with great joy that we share the REPOSITORY OF INTERCULTURAL PRACTICES Sub-Project: Practices for Decolonial Pedagogies. The RePI portal is linked to the Federal University of Santa Catarina's Institutional Program for Internationalization (PRINT) and coordinated by the Scientific and Technological Education Postgraduate Program (PPGECT), and has been in development since March 2019 with funding from CAPES. The sub-project includes the participation of the following programs:

The proposal arises from the PRINT-UFSC project Intercultural Practices Repository: Proposals for decolonial pedagogies, an international mobility project for teachers and doctoral students, linked to different educational institutions in various countries. Being multidisciplinary, the project, in addition to the Postgraduate Program in Scientific and Technological Education, includes the Postgraduate Programs in Interdisciplinary in Human Sciences, Linguistics, Psychology and Social Work.

In previous internationalization experiences, the Discourses of Science and Technology Research Group (DiCiTE), linked to PPGECT, investigated the impact of educational cooperations carried out between Brazil and Timor-Leste and concluded that they often end up producing a Eurocentric, verticalized discourse in which local everyday life and knowledge are silenced. Seeking to find paths of opposition to the effects of coloniality, we intend to propose a dialogue of knowledge, favoring emancipation and non-creation of dependence or subalternization and a culture of peace. With these inspirations, in proposing the REPI, we intend to: deepen partnerships between teachers at various levels (teachers: trainers, in training, from basic education), the community, the school and the university; raise local themes that foster the development of pedagogical interventions and the production of didactic materials, which aim at the dialogue of knowledge and emancipation; organize and publish these materials in a repository with free access.

We hope you enjoy this socialization.

Project Summary

The main axis of the project is the construction of intercultural knowledge and practices that address the effects of coloniality and emancipatory pathways to this issue, with a view to building a multilingual online repository. These notions are related to domination through non-coercive means, which subalternize and dehumanize people, causing loss of cultural identity, dependence, and lack of belonging. Seeking ways to counteract these effects, we understand that partnerships between researchers and international institutions concerned with these themes favor a dialogue of knowledge, recognition of existing experiences and productions, and the production of social technologies. We intend to develop networks of research, study, diagnosis of relevant local and regional issues, contributions to international cooperation, dissemination of research, and an online repository with different materials produced in the project. The proposal refers to previous experiences of the team members. From 2009 to 2016, UFSC coordinated the "Qualification Program for Portuguese Language Teaching and Teacher Training" (PQLP) of CAPES, which sent missions of up to 50 teachers to Timor-Leste. Results from research experiences and work demonstrate the relevance of the project for the international preservation of local and ancestral cultural heritage, for dialogical and recognition of new knowledge and social technologies. It is also important to highlight that this project is articulated with the newly created UNESCO Chair "Language and Policies for Multilingualism," hosted at UFSC, which involves thirteen countries and aims to understand how languages and multilingualism are resources for the sustainable development of linguistic communities, societies, and states, according to the ideas of the United Nations' 2030 Goals for Sustainable Development, in a broad and transdisciplinary perspective. In this sense, internationalization and multilingualism are linked to education, the economy, access to communication and technologies, all of which are also linked to the actions and aspirations of this project, which involves six UFSC postgraduate programs gathered around well-being and social justice.

The Brazilian team is mostly composed of educators who have international backgrounds, both in their education and professional experience, and who are dedicated to studying issues related to social justice in different areas, such as science, technology, decolonization, multilingualism, identity, culture, interculturality, and education.

The current coordinator, Patricia M. Giraldi, is an Associate Professor at the Federal University of Santa Catarina, affiliated with the Center for Education Sciences and the Department of Teaching Methodology (MEN), teaching in the Biological Sciences undergraduate program. She is affiliated with the Postgraduate Program in Scientific and Technological Education (PPGECT), supervising master's and doctoral students. She was the coordinator of the UFSC-Universidade Nacional de Timor Lorosae International Academic Mobility Project between 2015 and 2017. She conducts research with the DICITE (Discourses of Science and Technology in Education) research group and leads the Literacies research group. She holds a degree in Biological Sciences from the Federal University of Santa Maria (RS), a master's and a Ph.D. in Scientific and Technological Education from the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC), and a postdoctoral degree in Education from the University of Lisbon. Her research interests include language in science education, literature and science education, authorship and science education.

The previous coordinator of the RePI project, Suzani Cassiani (2018-2020), conducted postdoctoral and sandwich doctoral studies at foreign universities and has been developing international projects and partnerships resulting in publications, conferences, national and international events. She was the coordinator of the Teacher Qualification Program and Portuguese Language Teaching in Timor-Leste, an institutional program of CAPES and coordinated by UFSC (https://pqlp.ufsc.br/), which produced numerous outcomes, such as: the coordination of the AULP/CAPES International Mobility Pre-Project; coordination of the arrival of Timorese professors with scholarships from the Timorese oil fund, for training at the PG level; her CNPq productivity scholarship, currently 1C. She currently serves on the CNPq Education Advisory Committee.

The project also benefits from the collaboration of Prof. Gilvan Muller, who coordinates the UNESCO Chair "Language Policies for Multilingualism" at UFSC.

Many participating teachers have had the opportunity to conduct sandwich doctoral and postdoctoral studies at foreign universities that are now partners of this project, possessing a highly diversified and interdisciplinary education. We can highlight that the group has a great diversity of experiences, from teachers who worked with Paulo Freire in Guinea-Bissau in 1974, to teachers who already act as visiting professors and/or in international missions of countries considered a priority in this call. We also emphasize that most of our researchers have been participating in international events and publications, organizing national and international publications on their respective themes in Brazil. There are also examples of international project coordination and conferences in various countries.