I do not want to be an object of study

One of the major themes that has been controversial in our trip has been the issue of knowledge production in Brazil and on Brazil. This issue took center stage when we met with Edna Roland who went from being the leader of a non government organization dedicated to black women’s rights to being the President of the World Conference in 2001 based partially on the fact that she had published a paper on some the issues addressed at the world conference. This issue came up again with Hedio Silva who is head of CEERT (Research Center on Labor Relations and Inequalities) who uses his research on racial discrimination as evidence against the government to prove that racism is persuasive in Brazil. He argued that knowledge production has two positive effects. First it helps with litigation and second it can change the minds, opinions and argument of government leaders who guide legislation. Knowledge production is also very political in Brazil. Many activists in Brazil feel exploited as “objects of study” as opposed to researchers and academics themselves. At PUC- Sao Paulo some students were adamant about the fact that they researched the US and would like to travel to do field research in the states. Still other activists argued that researcher come to Brazil, take their concepts publish them and gain money and notoriety without acknowledging the activists or sharing some the resources.
We meet with students at the Global Palmares Institute and they added a layer to this discourse that I had not properly accounted for. TheY questioned just how effective the written word could be in mobilizing, organizing and identity formation in a county were the majority of people are functionally illiterate. They questioned who the audience of this knowledge production is and whether that audience is different from the masses of black Brazilian who are necessary to utilize in the struggle for racial equity. They feared that this move toward knowledge production could create an industry of academics without addressing the needs of most Brazilians.
Considering both sides of the argument I think it is important to have a strong community of scholars dedicated to community activism and that mass literacy should be the first item on agenda.