Professor launches research and website about Kabengele Munanga

Via: Paiva Rebouças, from Agecom/UFRN
The Department of Social Sciences (DCS) at UFRN launches this Thursday, the 15th, research on the Brazilian-Congolese anthropologist and professor Kabengele Munanga. The initiative, designed as part of the discipline Anthropology and the Study of Culture (2022), taught by professor Ana Gretel Echazú Böschemeier, from the Department of Anthropology (DAN/UFRN), takes place at 1 pm, in room B1 of the Center for Human Sciences, Letters and Arts (CCHLA/UFRN), on the Central Campus, in Natal.
The investigation, of an exploratory nature, proposes a survey of knowledge regarding Kabengele Munanga and his trajectory at UFRN. “It is based on qualitative materials (interview, research in secondary sources and critical discussion of materials produced by the author) and quantitative (survey among UFRN students) that were collected during the month of December 2022”, explains Gretel.
According to the researcher, based on this material, a series of new meanings and threads for research can be opened in the academic community and in spaces for citizen discussion. “The research can bring more meaning to this researcher, focusing on the importance of knowing and recognizing the passage of the Congolese professor Kabengele Munanga at UFRN between 1979 and 1980, during the last months of the military dictatorship period”, he contextualizes.
From this study, continues Ana Gretel, a series of meanings emerge, projecting questions into the future, such as: why are there a portion of UFRN students who are unaware of the existence of black intellectuals? Why is there such a low number of people who know the trajectory of an intellectual who contributed so much to academia and public affirmative action policies in the country like Professor Kabengele Munanga?
Gretel also reinforces that the visibility of this researcher's trajectory in the Northeast and in particular at UFRN points to the need for public recognition of his contribution. Therefore, the research is an attempt to democratize the discussion about race relations in the country.
In addition to the research, the group formed by the teacher and students from the curricular component will launch a website to publicize the work, which will be maintained for a period of two years. The idea is that other research and dissemination work can unfold from this initiative.
Kabengele Munanga
Born in Bakwa Kalonji, in the former Zaire, currently the Democratic Republic of Congo, on November 19, 1942, Kabengele Munanga was his country's first anthropologist, leaving for the first time to pursue a master's degree in Belgium. He arrived in Brazil at the invitation of a colleague, where he remained until completing his doctorate at the University of São Paulo (USP), returning to Congo soon after. In 1980 he returned to Brazil to take up the chair of Anthropology at UFRN, but moved to São Paulo a year later to take up a position at USP. Graduated from the University of Lubumbashi (Congo), Munanga is a specialist in the anthropology of the Afro-Brazilian population, focusing on the issue of racism in Brazilian society.