The 2025.1 edition of the “Voices of the Global South” study meeting cycle begins next Thursday 24th.

This semester's edition of the cycle of study meetings “Vozes from the Global South”, promoted by the research group DESCOM – Decolonial Insurgencies, Communication, Arts and Humanities, from the Department of Social Communication of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, begins next Thursday, April 24th. The meetings aim to promote transdisciplinary and intersectional debates based on the reading and discussion of texts by thinkers from the Global South.
The meetings, two in total in the current academic semester, will take place between April and June 2025 and will be held from 1pm to 3pm in a hybrid format: in Auditorium 1 of the UFRN Social Communication Department for those who can participate in person, but with connection via the Google Meet platform for those who can only attend remotely.
At each meeting, texts will be discussed that will be made available in advance to registered people. Starting this semester, along with articles, essays and book chapters, short stories and novels by authors from the Global South will also be read and discussed, based on the understanding of literature as an operator of knowledge production about bodies, lives and fundamental themes of our time – from the perspective of racialized voices and subordinated by the coloniality of power and knowledge – as powerful and valid as the human and social sciences. The meetings are open to all interested people, from inside and outside the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte.
Registration, free of charge, can be made through the public portal of the Integrated Academic Activities Management System – SIGAA, through the link: https://sigaa.ufrn.br/sigaa/public/home.jsf, following the path Extension – Events – Search Event. To register, it is not necessary to have a link with the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte.
The first meeting of “Vozes do Sul Global” will take place next Thursday, April 24, and will debate the texts: “Racism and sexism in Brazilian culture” and “For an Afro-Latin American feminism” by Lélia González, and the short story “Zaitá forgot to put away her toys” by Conceição Evaristo.
The texts are available in the Google Drive folder accessible via the link: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1vr6F81I- LyG_0AYUYrOY34dNTYOg7iRn. It is recommended that all registered people read the texts in advance to participate in the discussions.
The objectives of the “Voices of the Global South” cycle are to promote discussions with perspectives that are decentered from the epistemic assumptions of Euro-white knowledge centered on the intersection between critical social thought, humanities, communication, arts and other fields of knowledge; encourage dialogue between scientific knowledge and knowledge produced in epistemic loci other than academia (indigenous and quilombola communities, terreiros, artistic and activist collectives, popular social movements, anti-colonial resistance movements and others) by bodies and voices from different latitudes of the Global South subordinated by the modern world-system; stimulate the exchange of reflections and experiences of decolonization of thought and social practices between undergraduate and postgraduate students and researchers from different areas of Human and Social Sciences, holders of non-academic knowledge and anyone interested.
SERVICE
Meeting cycle
VOICES FROM THE GLOBAL SOUTH
PROGRAMMING 1st MEETING DATE: April 24, 2025 TIME: 1-3pm
LOCATION: Auditorium 1 of the Social Communication Department of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte – Google Meet Platform (for remote participants)*
TEXTS: Lélia González – Racism and sexism in Brazilian culture Lélia González – For an Afro-Latin American feminism Conceição Evaristo – Zaitá forgot to put away her toys (short story)
2nd MEETING DATE: June 26, 2025
TIME: 1-3pm
LOCATION: Auditorium 1 of the Social Communication Department of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte – Google Meet Platform (for remote participants)*
TEXTS: Oyérònké Oyěwùmí, "The invention of women. Constructing an African meaning for Western gender discourses" - Chapter 1 (Visualizing the body: Western theories and African subjects), Chapter 4 (Colonizing bodies and minds: gender and colonialism) and Chapter 5 (The translation of cultures: gendering Yoruba language, orality and cosmoperception). Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie – The stubborn historian (short story)
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