Mecila

#53

Exploring the Conviviality–Inequality Nexus: Findings and Prospects

Philipp Naucke & Sérgio Costa

From 11 to 13 December 2025, the Maria Sibylla Merian Centre Conviviality–Inequality in Latin America Mecila, hosted its Berlin Conference ‘Exploring the Conviviality–Inequality Nexus: Findings and Prospects’ at Freie Universität Berlin.

Bringing together scholars, artists, policy practitioners, and representatives of international research centres, particularly the Merian Centres based in Accra, Delhi, Guadalajara, and Tunis as well as the DFG Humanities Centre of Advanced Studies Futures of Sustainability and the GIGA Institute for Latin American Studies, the conference marked an important moment to take stock of Mecila’s work and to reflect collectively on future directions for research and collaboration. When Mecila began its activities, the challenges of living together in societies marked by deep and persistent inequalities were already evident. Today, these challenges have intensified. The conference was structured around three interrelated lines of conflict that shape contemporary debates on conviviality and inequality: the climate emergency and its uneven consequences; growing tensions in domestic and international politics; and widening North–South asymmetries in knowledge production and circulation. Over the three days, participants explored how these dynamics intersect and how they might be addressed through interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research.

The conference kicked off with the welcome addresses by Günter M. Ziegler (President of Freie Universität Berlin), Silke Launert (State Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space), his excellence Rodrigo de Lima Baena Soares (Ambassador of Brazil in Germany), and Sérgio Costa (Mecila’s Spokesperson), setting the tone by locating the conference at the intersection of academic collaboration and global inequalities. The first roundtable, “Overcoming North–South Academic Asymmetries: Diagnosis and Responses”, gathered spokespersons and (former) directors of the Merian Centres in Accra (Hans-Peter Hahn), Delhi (Martin Fuchs), Guadalajara (Olaf Kaltmeier), Tunis (Rachid Ouaissa), and São Paulo (Susanne Klengel). Moderated by Laila Abu-Er-Rub (MIASA), the discussion highlighted the importance of sustainable partnerships, academic freedom, and knowledge diplomacy in a context marked by geopolitical uncertainty, nationalism, and shrinking spaces for critical scholarship. Rather than treating asymmetries as merely structural constraints, the panel emphasized the need for innovative institutional formats that actively reshape how research agendas are defined and pursued.

Photo by Gareth Harmer.

Questions of innovation and excellence in higher education were taken up again on the second day in a roundtable with university leaders and directors of Centres for Advanced Studies, such as Friederike Pannewick (German Science and Humanities Council), Robert Folger (Käte Hamburger Centre for Apocalyptic and Post-Apocalyptic Studies), Karin Harrasser (International Research Center for Cultural Studies), Verena Blechinger-Talcott (Freie Universität Berlin), and yet again Günter M. Ziegler and Sérgio Costa. Here, the focus shifted to the institutional frameworks required to support interdisciplinary research capable of responding to complex current societal and political challenges. Participants reflected on the tensions between academic autonomy, political pressures, and the growing demand for socially relevant research, underlining the role of universities and research centres as spaces for critical reflection in difficult times.

This institutional lens fed into the panel “Knowledges in Dialogue: From Interdisciplinary to Transdisciplinary”, which explored how academic, artistic, and experiential knowledge can transform each other when confronted with planetary crises. In this panel, Gioconda Herrera (FLACSO Ecuador) reflected transdisciplinary approaches to mobility and climate crises in the Andean region, showing how social and political actors’ situated knowledges reshape research on droughts, floods, and landslides. Awadhendra Sharan (Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi) proposed a framework for theorizing “atmospheres” in Anthropocene times that connects climate change, pandemics, and toxic air with histories of colonialism and global inequality. Artist and researcher Sela Adjei (University of Media, Arts and Communication, Ghana) discussed “Fragments of Conviviality”, reflecting on African visual cultures, restitution, and the politics of repair as forms of knowledge production that challenge extractive regimes between Europe and Africa. Finally, Cyrine Kortas (University of Gabes, Tunis) read Tunisian Sufi poetry through a transdisciplinary lens, treating it as a site where collective memory, devotional practice, gendered social roles, and national narratives intersect. Moderated by Julius Dihstelhoff (MECAM), these contributions illustrated that convivial futures require knowledge grounded in lived situations and negotiated across disciplinary and social boundaries.

Photo by Gareth Harmer.

The afternoon panel “Climate Change and Multispecies Conviviality”, moderated by Manuel Santos Silva (Freie Universität, Mecila), extended this perspective to human–non‑human relations and socio‑ecological conflicts. Olivia Gomes da Cunha (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro) examined “fugitive relations” in Plantationocene worlds, focusing on Maroon communities in Suriname and their multispecies engagements with landscapes shaped by colonial extraction. Frank Adloff (University of Hamburg) argued for recognizing “nature’s gifts” and advancing a methodological animism that treats non‑humans as subjects, with implications for rights of nature and legal innovation. Maya Manzi (Federal University of Recôncavo da Bahia) connected pesticide‑driven water contamination in Western Bahia to the erosion of commons‑based livelihoods, showing how convivial relations between herders, cattle, and land are being undermined by agribusiness. Ulrich Brand (University of Vienna) analyzed the structural limits of the “decarbonisation state” within liberal capitalism and asked what a “transformation state” might mean for conviviality. The day concluded with a roundtable on “Disputing Environment and Climate Change”, moderated by Barbara Göbel (Ibero-American Institut Berlin), and bringing in perspectives from government, international cooperation, and academia – in person of Marta Machado (National Secretary for Drug Policies at the Ministry of Justice, Brazil); Sarah David (German International Cooperation – GIZ); and Guilherme Bianchi (University of São Paulo) – to explore how climate policies intersect with security, development, and justice.

The final day turned more explicitly to democracy and political agency. The morning panel “Democracy at the Crossroads: Challenges and Perspectives”, moderated by Marianne Braig (Freie Universität Berlin) addressed democratic crises in Latin America and beyond. Marcos Nobre (University of Campinas) introduced the concept of Bolsonarismo as a “digital party”, arguing that new, non‑institutionalized party forms emerging in digital spheres can disrupt existing regimes. Bert Hoffmann (GIGA Hamburg) highlighted how core elements of the res publica, from security to monetary infrastructures, are increasingly privatized, reframing what is at stake in democratic erosion. Ina Kerner (University of Koblenz) traced the “coloniality” of democracy, arguing that some of its crises are not recent aberrations but long‑standing features rooted in colonial histories. Luicy Pedroza (El Colegio de México) examined whether Latin America’s comparatively inclusive migration policies can withstand externalized border controls and domestic democratic backlashes. In the subsequent roundtable “Doing Politics in Difficult Times: The Contribution of Social Movements and Institutions”, the indigenous leader Yasmin Romero Epiayú (Wayuu, Colombia), the queer and abolitionist activist Ari Lutzker (YoNoFui Collective, Argentina), the political scientist Marisa Ramos Rollón (Universidad Complutense de Madrid), and the climate activist and poetess Fatim Selina Diaby (BUND) reflected on how collective action and institutional engagement shape politics under conditions of crisis. The discussion, moderated by Tomaz Amorim (University of Bochum), emphasized the need for alliances that connect local struggles with transnational networks, and that bridge social movements and formal institutions.

Photo by Mecila Berlin Office.

The conference concluded with a closing panel, moderated by Gesine Müller (University of Cologne, Mecila), that looked ahead to future collaborations among the Merian Centres and beyond. Reflecting on the discussions of the previous days, Encarnación Gutiérrez-Rodríguez (Goethe-Universität Frankfurt), Kristina Dietz (University of Kassel), Gloria Chicote (CONICET/University of La Plata, Argentina), Jörg Gengnagel (Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg), and Mamadou Diawara (Goethe University Frankfurt) emphasized the need to further strengthen transregional and transdisciplinary networks, and to continue engaging with non-academic audiences. In doing so, Mecila’s work on conviviality and inequality was reaffirmed as both analytically rigorous and socially engaged. Overall, the Mecila Berlin Conference 2025 provided a space for critical reflection, dialogue, and prospecting. By bringing together diverse perspectives and forms of knowledge, it highlighted not only the depth of contemporary crises, but also the possibilities for reimagining conviviality under conditions of inequality. As the discussions made clear, addressing these challenges requires sustained collaboration across disciplines, regions, and institutional boundaries — a task that will continue to guide Mecila’s work in the years to come.

#52

Professor Guillermo Obiols Library: Supporting Research and Learning within Mecila (2020–2026)

The Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut Editorial Team 

The Prof. Guillermo Obiols Library is a support service for teaching, study, research, outreach, and management at the Faculty of Humanities and Education Sciences and the Institute for Research in Humanities and Social Sciences at the National University of La Plata.

As part of Mecila’s information infrastructure, the Library develops active library services aimed at ensuring the generation, communication, and dissemination of information and knowledge to its user community in general, and to researchers, fellows, and thesis writers of the Mecila consortium in particular.

The “Prof. Guillermo Obiols” Library is a support service for teaching, study, research, outreach, and management at the Faculty of Humanities and Education Sciences (hereinafter FaHCE) and the Institute for Research in Humanities and Social Sciences (hereinafter IdIHCS) of the National University of La Plata (hereinafter UNLP).

Its mission is to propose and intervene on demand in the academic processes of FaHCE and IdIHCS, with bibliographic resources, professional capabilities, physical spaces, and library services designed to guarantee, facilitate, and contribute to the generation, communication, and dissemination of information and knowledge.

Prof. Guillermo Obiols Library

FaHCE focuses its teaching on training outstanding professionals who are committed to addressing educational, human, social, and territorial issues in the community. The IdIHCS, as its research body, carries out more than 200 projects in its 18 centers and laboratories, employing 240 researchers and 190 fellows. It is part of international networks such as Mecila and coordinates federal initiatives and other interinstitutional programs.

The Prof. Guillermo Obiols Library has a collection of more than 120,000 books and 3,700 printed journals, as well as more than 65,000 digital resources. It welcomes 200 people per day to its study areas and provides personalized service for researchers, advising on open access, bibliographic reference managers, obtaining external documents, training in searches and intellectual property, entry into research careers, among other topics. Likewise, in its vision of community engagement, it offers integrated spaces for book presentations, conferences, and exhibitions, where valuable documents from the collection are linked to specific themes proposed by research groups.

Prof. Guillermo Obiols Library

In addition, it manages the institutional repository Memoria Académica, with the obligation to deposit the scientific production of researchers, through an open access policy of the FaHCE/IdIHCS (Resolution 527/2021) and the UNLP (Ordinance 302/2021) in compliance with the provisions of National Law 26.899/2013 and Resolution 753/2016 that regulates it. To date, it has collected around 53,000 documents, including journal articles, books, presentations at events, theses, and research and extension projects. In collaboration with the IdIHCS, it advises its researchers and curates data for the deposit of primary research data in the institutional repository and in the UNLP data repository.

It also works with IdIHCS to develop ARCAS, a repository of sources of interest for research, with collections of manuscripts by authors such as Manuel Puig and Edgardo Vigo, among others, interviews and oral recordings made for the study of language with their transcripts, and other institutional archival materials.

Prof. Guillermo Obiols Library

#51

Library of the Institute of Brazilian Studies at the University of São Paulo, Brazil

The Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut Editorial Team

The Institute of Brazilian Studies at the University of São Paulo (IEB/USP) is an interdisciplinary research center dedicated to the preservation, dissemination, and study of a collection of recognized academic relevance, consisting of personal collections distributed among the Archive, Library, and Visual Arts Collection.

Its Library houses one of the most significant Brasiliana collections in the country, with approximately 270,000 volumes organized into 47 collections. Linked to the Institute’s other collections, the Library facilitates the production of qualified research and critical reflection on Brazil, while also promoting academic exchange with similar institutions, both nationally and internationally.

The Institute of Brazilian Studies at the University of São Paulo (IEB/USP) was created in 1962 on the initiative of historian Sérgio Buarque de Holanda. Since then, it has served as an integrating body for one of the largest and most prestigious universities in the country and as an interdisciplinary research center focused on critical reflection on Brazil. Since its inception, the Institute has been structured around the articulation between the Archive, Library, and Visual Arts Collection, bringing together under its care documentary collections that dialogue with multiple areas of knowledge, such as Anthropology, Architecture, Fine Arts, Library Science, Political Science, Cinema, Law, Economics, Education, Philosophy, Geography, History, Literature, Music, Sociology, Museology, and Theater.

The IEB is thus responsible for the preservation, dissemination, and research of an exceptional collection, consisting mainly of personal archives and collections assembled during their lifetimes by prominent Brazilian intellectuals, writers, and artists. These collections reflect comprehensive and dense analytical perspectives on the country’s social, cultural, and artistic thought, making them fundamental primary sources for academic research. In this sense, it is part of the IEB’s institutional mission to promote qualified access to this heritage, as well as to encourage its critical appropriation by professors, researchers, undergraduate and graduate students, both from USP and other national and international institutions, expanding the possibilities for teaching, research, and university extension.

Library of the Institute of Brazilian Studies at the University of São Paulo (IEB/USP)

The IEB Library plays a central role in this complex, constituting one of the main centers for research in Brazilian Studies in the country. With one of the most important collections of Brazilian literature in Brazil, the Library has around 270,000 volumes distributed across 47 collections, associated with key figures in Brazilian culture and thought, such as Mário de Andrade, Caio Prado Jr., Graciliano Ramos, Celso Furtado, Guimarães Rosa, José Aderaldo Castello, and Manuel Correia de Andrade, among others. Its collection also includes the oldest incunabulum in the custody of the University of São Paulo, dating from 1493, as well as rare collections of sermons from the 16th and 17th centuries, travel accounts from the 18th and 19th centuries, and a significant collection of periodicals from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Organically integrated with the Visual Arts Archive and Collection, the IEB Library not only preserves and organizes knowledge, but also acts as an active agent in intellectual production, enabling interdisciplinary research, fostering academic exchange, and contributing to the development of innovative research tools. The close relationship between the collection and scientific research thus constitutes a vector of institutional innovation, incorporating both established fields—such as Archival Science and Museology—and emerging approaches, such as Digital Humanities.

True to its mission, the IEB reaffirms values such as the protection of cultural heritage, the democratization of information and knowledge, freedom of thought and expression, diversity and social inclusion, and an ongoing commitment to dialogue with society. Supported by a monumental collection and consolidated interdisciplinary practices, the Institute stands out as a national and international reference in Brazilian Studies, contributing decisively to critical reflection on Brazil and to addressing the educational, economic, and social inequalities that mark the country’s reality.

#50

From Archive to Network: How the Daniel Cosío Villegas Library Supports Mecila’s Transnational Research

The Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut Editorial Team

The Daniel Cosío Villegas Library at El Colegio de México (COLMEX), open to the public, strengthens interdisciplinary research in the humanities and social sciences. Through the integration of its collections and resources into the digital infrastructure of the Mecila project, it facilitates academic exchange between Latin America and Europe.

El Colegio de México is a public, university-level institution dedicated to research and advanced teaching in the social sciences and humanities. It is one of the most distinguished institutions in the Spanish-speaking world and has received numerous accolades since its founding in 1940.

To fulfill its mission, El Colegio de México conducts research and offers graduate instruction through its specialized research centers: Historical Studies, Linguistic and Literary Studies, International Studies, Asian and African Studies, Economic Studies, Urban and Environmental Demographic Studies, Sociological Studies, and Gender Studies. The institution offers undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral degrees in specialized fields, as well as specialized and summer courses.

Biblioteca Daniel Cosío Villegas

The Daniel Cosío Villegas Library (BDCV) at El Colegio de México is recognized as a leading institution in Mexico and Latin America. Its standing is grounded in the richness of its collections, the high quality of its bibliographic processes, and a range of specialized services designed to support the academic community.

The library’s vision is to remain the intellectual heart of the institution and to serve as an internationally recognized model of an inclusive, innovative, and transdisciplinary academic library. Its mission is to support research, teaching, learning, reflection, and creativity. By connecting individuals with high-quality information, the BDCV empowers people, fosters critical thinking, and promotes the effective and sustainable use of information resources. It remains committed to open knowledge, the right to information, the preservation of institutional memory, and the advancement of information sciences. As a public space for encounter, development, and exchange of ideas, the library serves as a dynamic hub for intellectual engagement.

With a collection exceeding 625,000 books and over 770,000 printed volumes, and access to a wide range of electronic resources, the BDCV houses one of the most important Latin American collections in the social sciences and humanities. Its holdings span key fields such as public administration, economics, international studies, demography, urban development, history, linguistics, Hispanic literature, political science, sociology, gender studies, translation, and the social impact of science and technology.

Biblioteca Daniel Cosío Villegas

The library has undertaken numerous digital initiatives, resulting in the creation of its digital collections. Among these is the institutional repository, which provides open access to approximately 3,000 publications produced by El Colegio de México.

As a research library, the BDCV has been a strategic partner of the Mecila project since 2020. This collaboration is based on the cross-continental exchange of resources between Latin America and Germany, facilitated through integration into the digital infrastructure coordinated by the Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut (IAI) in Berlin.

The BDCV’s goal of strengthening bibliographic cooperation through international programs and agreements finds in Mecila an ideal ecosystem to expand its capacity to support research, teaching, and learning. In line with its commitment to providing services that are relevant, timely, efficient, flexible, and accessible, the library contributes to Mecila’s mission of ensuring that fellows and researchers across the network can access high-quality information regardless of their geographic location.

This synergy reinforces the Daniel Cosío Villegas Library’s international leadership while simultaneously expanding the Mecila Information Infrastructure into a vibrant space for transnational scientific collaboration. Together, these efforts advance shared objectives: broadening access to information resources, fostering knowledge production, and strengthening academic networks across continents.

#49

The Ibero-American Institute (IAI): Collections, Research, and Global Scholarly Exchange

The Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut Editorial Team 

The Ibero-American Institute (IAI), Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz (SPK), is a multidisciplinary research institute bringing together collections, research and events. With a focus on Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain and Portugal, the IAI fosters international academic exchange. In February 2026, it will host the Mecila Institutional Workshop.

The Ibero‑American Institute (IAI), Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz (SPK), is a multidisciplinary non‑university research institute for the humanities, cultural studies and social sciences. As an area studies institution, it has a regional focus on Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain and Portugal, while also taking into account transregional interconnections. The institute’s unique profile is defined by its genuinely international orientation and the equal integration of different areas of work under one roof: collections, research and events.

At the heart of the IAI are its Library and Special Collections, which form Europe’s largest specialised research archive on Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain, and Portugal, encompassing well over two million items, including analog and digital books and journals, audiovisual media, maps, photographs, and other sources. These collections are distinguished by their cultural diversity, geographical breadth, and historical depth, and they serve as a shared global cultural heritage. The IAI continuously develops and expands these resources, making them accessible to scholars worldwide and supporting research that connects local, regional, and transregional perspectives.

The Library and Special Collections of the Ibero-American Institute (IAI) provide the basis for the institute’s research activities and international collaborations. Complemented by partnerships with universities and cultural institutions, the IAI hosts visiting researchers and produces a multilingual publication program. The combination of collections, research, and publications creates a space for the production and transfer of knowledge, as well as for the mediation of cultural perspectives across regions and disciplines.

Cultural and scientific events are central to the IAI’s mission, too. The institute’s event programme is interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary and multilingual, and is carried out with a wide range of partners. Conferences, lectures, exhibitions and other formats provide spaces for dialogue between scholars, cultural actors and the broader public and connect research with societal themes. These events contribute to public understanding of complex issues, from knowledge transfer and cultural heritage to contemporary global challenges, through an Ibero‑American lens.

Founded in 1930, the IAI has evolved into an established institution for dialogue between Germany and the Ibero‑American world. Since 1962, it has been part of the Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz (SPK, Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation), one of the largest cultural and scientific institutions worldwide. Within the SPK network, the IAI brings specific expertise and knowledge on Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain and Portugal.

In February 2026 (18–20), the IAI will host the Mecila Institutional Workshop, a central event of the Mecila Research Network and its information infrastructure. The workshop will bring together researchers, librarians, and technical coordinators from leading institutions in Latin America and Europe to discuss the current state and future development of collaborative knowledge infrastructures supporting interdisciplinary research.

 

Photos Copyright: SPK/photothek.net/Florian Gaertner

#48

Notes on Jeffrey Lesser’s “Living and Dying in São Paulo”

Antonella Delmonte Allasia (CONICET / Mecila)

An interdisciplinary journey into health care, inequality, and urban life: this post reflects on Living and Dying in São Paulo (Duke University Press, 2025) and its rich ethnographic and methodological contributions to the social sciences.

In anthropology, methodology is never taken for granted; rather, we tend to reflect deeply on the very act of research, on the ethnographic endeavor itself. Following that tradition, when reading the book written by historian Jeffrey Lesser (Emory University / Mecila), I can only begin with methodology, since it was the very first aspect that caught my attention.

The book draws on various disciplines—history, anthropology, sociology, and geography—and therefore mobilizes a broad repertoire of sources and research methodologies, amounting to an almost showcase-like use of social science tools. The research was based on the analysis of historical and contemporary sources ranging from archives (such as the Public Health Archive), observations, cartography, digital maps, photographs, and participation in health programs. Jeffrey took part in health surveillance teams and in the primary care team at the Bom Retiro Public Health Clinic, in São Paulo. As the book itself notes, three different teams participated in the research in parallel, which made this kind of endeavor possible. These teams are both multidisciplinary and multinational.

I want to underline the reflections made on the researcher’s presence in the field. From the very beginning of the book, this presence is acknowledged and examined, as well as how it impacts the social configuration under analysis. And this is not only at the beginning; it resurfaces later on. For instance, when the text problematizes issues such as the clothes the researcher wears, how one enters the field, whether one introduces oneself, etc. It shows that the researcher is neither objective nor external, and that their presence also influences the construction of both data and arguments in the investigation.

Image: Antonella Delmonte Allasia. A corner in Bom Retiro that sells and repairs machines.

Beyond methodology, I would like to highlight the temporal scope that the book handles. The period of analysis is broad, ranging from the mid-19th century to the present, always focused on the Bom Retiro neighborhood, as the research site. Despite being so broad, the study works because there is a thematic thread that ties everything together: the relationship between health, migration, and the urban environment. Thus, there is a central question that holds the book together, revolving around the practices of health and illness carried out by the state and its agents, and how people engage in everyday health practices. In this way, the book distances itself from a purely top-down perspective on public policies, bringing us closer to how these policies are actually carried out and how the residents of Bom Retiro receive them and act upon them.

Another important aspect is the spatial approach, since the book also analyzes how people and the state construct the space of Bom Retiro, and, at the same time, how that space shapes people and their health. Bom Retiro was and continues to be a central neighborhood in the urban social configuration, particularly for migrants, as well as for the construction of the health and illness of the population of São Paulo.

The book employs the analytical notion of “residues” (material, political, and social), which allows it to address historical continuities. The idea of residues refers simultaneously to structures of repetition and to residual subjects. For the history of social sciences (particularly anthropology), the category of residues is not an empty signifier; it carries connotations, a certain haunting meaning provocative at the same time. But here they acquire situated meanings, linked both to social practices and to the research problem.

Chapter 5, in particular, puts into practice what the introduction announces, in the sense that it traces in the present the residues of past ideas which, despite biomedical advances, continue to prevent improvements in health outcomes in Bom Retiro. To reach this conclusion, the book traces—from the 19th-century General Disinfectory to current Zika prevention campaigns—the tensions between the state, health officials, and the residents of Bom Retiro. And there it shows how the “residues” of public health workers’ attitudes toward migrants persist today, insofar as the migrant population continues to be perceived as the source and cause of various diseases. In contrast, the research highlights the influence of the urban environment, broadly conceived, as key to understanding the spread of disease.

Image: Cover of Jeffrey Lesser’s book “Living and dying in São Paulo”. 

Last year, I participated in a roda de conversa (discussion circle) for women, which is held monthly in a pastoral center that provides support to migrants. The participants were exclusively migrant women from the Bom Retiro neighborhood. In one of the meetings, there were around 14 women, all Bolivian. Several had brought their children, who played in an adjacent room. All of them were seamstresses, except for one woman who was a psychologist. The meeting had three parts: first, conversation; second, games; and finally, a shared snack.

There, a game was played among women. It was “Musical Chairs”, where the goal was to find a seat. Since there was always one chair less than participants, someone always remained standing, and that person lost the round. The interesting part, in relation to the book, was one of the game’s rules. Whoever was left standing had to say her name, where she came from, what disease she carried, and whom she was going to infect. For example, I said: “I am Antonella, I come from Peru, I bring dengue, and I am going to infect everyone wearing black pants.” Then, all the women with black pants had to stand up and change seats, and so on. The game had the intended effect: we laughed and played for quite a while.

That day I noted the symbolic aspects of the game in my field notes but after reading the book, the game made even more sense and opened up new questions. Why do they choose those categories? Could it be that the game shows how actors are aware of being read through those categories associated with disease? If so, how do they put them into play creatively? In short, what do actors do with the categories of health and illness that subordinate them or that attempt to impose relations of subalternity? How do they put them into play creatively? Might they be showing the residues of ideas about health in other spaces not immediately connected with it?

Image at the top by Antonella Delmonte Allasia. An intercultural map inside Tiradentes station, in Bom Retiro.

Image: Antonella Delmonte Allasia. Street next to the Emílio Ribas Public Health Museum in Bom Retiro, covered in rubbish.

Explore More on This Topic

📖 Viver e morrer em São Paulo: Imigração, saúde e infraestrutura urbana (século XIX até o presente), by Jeffrey Lesser (Brazilian edition, Editora da Unesp,  2025)

🎧 Dois Pontos (ep. 7): “Saúde, migração e o SUS: desafios e caminhos” (interview with Eugenia Brage, PAGU-Unicamp / Mecila)

🎧 Diálogos Mecila (ep. 20): “’El Alto no Brasil’. Migración y convivialidad en São Paulo” (interview with Gabriel Mamani Magni with Antonella Delmonte Allasia)

📖 Antonella Delmonte Allasia, “Costurar formas de vida y convivialidad. Reflexiones sobre el trabajo de mujeres migrantes en São Paulo más allá de la informalidad” (Mecila Working Paper Series, No. 88)

📖 Eugenia Brage, “Tramas populares-comunitarias de convivialidad. Reflexiones en torno a la sostenibilidad de la vida y la producción de lo común en contextos transfronterizos” (Mecila Working Paper Series, No. 72)

#47

Mecila Information Infrastructure: A Digital Network for Scientific Collaboration in Latin America and Europe

The Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut Editorial Team

The Mecila Information Infrastructure connects researchers from Latin America, Europe, and German-speaking countries through a shared digital platform. With the Mecila eLibrary and comprehensive access to scholarly resources, interdisciplinary research on culture, society, and politics in Latin America is supported sustainably. The Mecila Institutional Workshop from February 18 to 20, 2026, in Berlin offers insights into the use and future development of the infrastructure, a key pillar of the Mecila research network.

The Mecila Information Infrastructure stands as a cornerstone of academic and cultural exchange between Germany and Latin America. Developed in close collaboration with leading institutions across the region, including the Daniel Cosío Villegas Library of El Colegio de México (COLMEX, Mexico), the Library of the Instituto de Estudos Brasileiros at the University of São Paulo (USP, Brazil), and the Biblioteca Prof. Guillermo Obiols of the Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educación, Instituto de Investigaciones en Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales (IdIHCS–CONICET/Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Argentina). The Mecila Information Infrastructure supports the interdisciplinary research network of the Mecila Project, funded by the Bundesministerium für Forschung, Technologie und Raumfahrt (BMFTR) and coordinated by the Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut (IAI) in Berlin (Germany).

Since its inception, Mecila has brought together scholars from diverse fields to examine pressing social transformations in Latin America, from urbanization and migration to cultural identity and political change.

For researchers working at the Mecila Hub in São Paulo or from distant academic centers, access to specialized literature can be a persistent challenge. The Mecila Information Infrastructure addresses this by creating a unified digital ecosystem that bridges geographical and institutional divides. Far more than a mere digital library, it functions as a cohesive knowledge infrastructure, integrating physical and digital resources, enabling seamless access to rare and hard-to-obtain materials, and fostering a shared research environment across continents.

At the core of this infrastructure is the Mecila eLibrary, a secure, virtual reading room designed specifically for copyrighted print materials that are not available in digital form. Access is restricted to registered Mecila project members and provided in compliance with German copyright law, ensuring legally compliant and equitable access to the materials. As of early 2025, the eLibrary hosts over 330 digitized titles, all selected from the Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut’s (IAI) extensive print holdings and curated for relevance to Mecila’s research themes. The collection includes works in English, Portuguese, and Spanish, covering a broad spectrum of social, cultural, and political topics central to the project.

Access to the Mecila Information Infrastructure is straightforward and free for all project members, including fellows, doctoral researchers, principal and associated investigators, and scientific coordinators. After personal registration, users are granted access to the services of the infrastructure, including the Mecila eLibrary, as well as to all digital resources of the IAI. While the eLibrary offers targeted access to digitized monographs, the Mecila Information Infrastructure provides users with access to the catalogues and services of all participating partner libraries. This includes the Online Public Access Catalogue (OPAC) and digital services of the Ibero-American Institute (IAI), as well as those of the Daniel Cosío Villegas Library at El Colegio de México (Mexico), the Library of the Institute of Brazilian Studies at the University of São Paulo (Brazil), and the Professor Guillermo Obiols Library of the Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educación / IdIHCS at the Universidad Nacional de La Plata (Argentina). These resources, combined with the ability to request digitization of specific materials, ensure that researchers can access the scholarly foundations they need, regardless of location.

Looking ahead, the Mecila Information Infrastructure will be further strengthened through a Mecila Institutional Workshop in Berlin from February 18 to 20, 2026, bringing together researchers, librarians, and technical coordinators to evaluate current practices, discuss future developments, and enhance the platform’s usability. This event underscores the Mecila Information Infrastructure’s role not only as a repository of knowledge but as a living, evolving space for collaboration that reflects the dynamic, transnational nature of contemporary research in Mecila and the Ibero-American world. By integrating institutional expertise, digital innovation, and a commitment to equitable access, the Mecila Information Infrastructure exemplifies how modern research infrastructures can transcend borders, enabling scholars to work together, share insights, and advance understanding across continents.

Mecila Information Infrastructure: Quick Overview

  • Project: Mecila Research Network (DFG-funded)
  • Coordinated by: Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut (IAI), Berlin
  • Partner Libraries:
  • COLMEX (Mexico)
  • USP (Brazil)
  • IdIHCS, CONICET/UNLP (Argentina)
  • Access: Free for all Mecila project members
  • Core Service: Mecila eLibrary: virtual reading and research space
  • Additional Services: Digitization requests, library card, technical support
  • Upcoming Event: Mecila Institutional Workshop, February 18–20, 2026, Berlin

You might also be interested in:

Contact:

Dr. Christoph Müller, PI and Coordinator of Mecila Information Infrastructure, IAI Library: mecila.library@iai.spk-berlin.de

#46

Rethinking Whiteness in Latin America: New Dialogues on Race and Inequality

Benjamin Junge (Mecila Senior Fellow / SUNY)

By combining essays on the origins of “whiteness” as a conceptual framework with studies of urban gentrification, and neoliberal capitalism, the sixth volume in the Mecila-CLACSO book series shows us that whiteness in Latin America is simultaneously old and new: It has deep colonial roots yet is constantly reinterpreted in contemporary contexts.

What does it mean to study whiteness in Latin America, and why refer to branquitudes and blanquitudes in the plural? The newest publication in the Biblioteca Mecila series, Branquitudes/Blanquitudes: Diálogos latinoamericanos sobre convivialidad y desigualdad, brings together Latin American scholars to explore these questions. Organized by Mário Augusto Medeiros da Silva, Patricia de Santana Pinho, Roosbelinda Cárdenas, and Hugo Cerón-Anaya, the book is both a collective intervention in whiteness studies and a call for dialogue across languages, regions, and intellectual traditions.

The volume’s editors push against the idea that whiteness is a single, fixed thing, but rather takes diverse, historically specific, and sometimes contradictory forms. The terms “branquitude” and “blanquitud” have emerged in Portuguese and Spanish to name these processes, drawing attention to structural and experiential dimensions of racial privilege. By combining essays on the origins of “whiteness” as a conceptual framework with studies of urban gentrification, and neoliberal capitalism, the volume shows us that whiteness in Latin America is simultaneously old and new: It has deep colonial roots yet is constantly reinterpreted in contemporary contexts.

Crédito: Mônica Cardim: Retratos contra a pele.

“Whiteness studies” established itself as a field of study in the United States in the 1990s. But can the conceptual frameworks developed in that context be applied to Latin America and other world areas? From colonial legacies of Iberian rule, to national myths of mestizaje, to the tendency to foreground class and downplay race in sociological analysis, the political, historical, and cultural dimensions of race in Latin America differ significantly. Accordingly, Branquitudes/Blanquitudes positions itself as a regional conversation that both dialogues with and departs from the Anglophone canon. The plural in the title signals something important: There is no singular, objective whiteness to investigate. Rather, the volume’s essays show how whiteness operates differently across time, space, and scale: as ideology, as privilege, as aspiration, and as embodied practice.

Several chapters draw on history to understand how whiteness took root and operated before it acquired a name. Patricia Martins Marcos analyzes Portuguese colonial contexts to argue that whiteness existed long before the concept of “branquitude” emerged. Mário Augusto da Silva shows how Black intellectuals in Brazil from 1945 to 2000 made whiteness visible through critique, even as mainstream scholarship ignored it. Critical thinking about whiteness in Latin America, he shows, didn’t simply appear following the arrival of theory from the global north: it had long been cultivated by Black thinkers themselves. Patricia de Santana Pinho tracks the trajectory of “branquitude” in Brazilian scholarship between 2000 and 2025. Her chapter isn’t only a history of a concept: It gives us a map of an emergent field. She shows how affirmative action debates, the Movimento Negro, and shifting political winds have pushed whiteness studies onto the center stage of Brazilian academia.

Crédito: Mônica Cardim: Retratos contra a pele.

Other chapters reframe and “provincialize” whiteness studies. Verónica Cortés Sánchez shows how scholarly perspectives from Latin America have produced “(re)readings of whiteness.” She asks: What is gained – and what risks are obscured – by the dominance of Anglophone genealogies in the field? Similarly, Cárdena’s chapter proposes the notion of “blanquigrafías hemisféricas” as a method to “write whiteness” across the hemisphere by tracing continuities in racialization, colonization, and capitalism.

The volume’s later chapters bring whiteness into the urgent contemporary moment, focusing on how whiteness reproduces inequality in everyday urban and social life. In her chapter, Ana Y. Ramos-Zayas shows how neoliberal capitalism and whiteness are mutually constitutive, producing not just economic inequality but moral structures for how one is recognized as a “good” citizen, a reliable worker, or a desirable neighbor. Grimaldo-Rodríguez’s chapter addresses gentrification, showing how urban transformation displaces communities of color yet normalizes white spatial dominance. Cerón-Anaya’s chapter argues that whiteness can’t be understood apart from gender and class; hence, the importance of intersectionality not as an “add-on,” but rather a methodology of study in its own right.

Crédito: Mônica Cardim: Retratos contra a pele.

For readers unfamiliar with Latin American debates, Branquitudes/Blanquitudes both shows how  whiteness shapes inequality and conviviality in the region. But as importantly, it also carves out space for Latin American scholarship to speak on its own terms. It also signals (and embodies) the importance of interdisciplinary empirical work and theory-building. The volume brings us several major insights. First, whiteness is always relational and it always relies on structures of exclusion and hierarchies of recognition. Second, whiteness is never static, but rather adapts dynamically to neoliberal economies, migratory flows, and shifting cultural imaginaries. Third, whiteness is always also affective, embodied, and aspirational.

As a whole, this important volume invites us to think whiteness differently – to see it not as a ready-made conceptual paradigm borrowed from the North, but rather as a tangle of practices, histories, and power relations that demand closer atention. The stakes here are not merely academic as – in Latin America and beyond – whiteness remains a powerful yet invisible force in everyday life. Branquitudes/Blanquitudes offers us generative perspectives on naming whiteness, studying whiteness, and contesting whiteness – so that more equitable forms of life together become imaginable.

#45

Convivialidades y desigualdades en tiempos de policrisis: el Foro Mecila en CLACSO 2025

Tomaz Amorim (Mecila)

Un espacio de diálogo interdisciplinario frente a la policrisis global, el Foro organisado por Mecila destacó prácticas heterodoxas de convivencia y desigualdad como formas de resistencia académica

En el marco de la X Conferencia Latinoamericana y Caribeña de Ciencias Sociales (CLACSO), celebrada el 10 de junio de 2025 en Bogotá, Colombia, el Maria Sibylla Merian Centre Conviviality-Inequality in Latin America (Mecila) organizó el foro de un día completo titulado “Prácticas heterodoxas de convivialidades y desigualdades en América Latina“. A continuación, se presentan algunas notas críticas sobre las diversas ponencias y discusiones.

El Foro Mecila, acogido por segunda vez en CLACSO, reafirmó la importancia de los espacios interdisciplinarios para la excelencia de la investigación. Como dijo Sérgio Costa (Freie Universität Berlin/Mecila) en la apertura, en un contexto de policrisis y de desconfianza en la ciencia, el intercambio franco entre investigadores de diversos países y estudiantes de la Universidad Nacional de Colombia representó un gesto de resistencia al recrudecimiento de nuevos y viejos conservadurismos. El evento propuso, así, formas de convivencia negociada entre diferentes, una tarea fundamental en los actuales contextos geopolíticos de la ciencia.

Conferencia Inaugural: Gioconda Herrera

Gioconda Herrera: Justicia climática y justicia migratoria en el marco del giro autoritário. Reflexiones desde la región andina. Foto del autor.

La conferencia de Gioconda Herrera (FLACSO Ecuador/Mecila International Advisory Board) marcó el tono del Foro al conectar justicia climática y justicia migratoria. Herrera destacó el giro de los estudios de migración hacia el concepto de movilidades, en estrecha relación con las transformaciones climáticas. En ese sentido, introdujo la idea de “violencia lenta” para describir los impactos graduales y profundos del cambio climático sobre grupos vulnerables como indígenas, pequeños campesinos y pescadores.

Para pensar la convivialidad, la ponente propuso una “ecología de cuidado y coexistencia con las personas y la naturaleza”, un enfoque que preserva la agencia de los sujetos y busca superar las dicotomías tradicionales entre migrantes económicos, políticos y climáticos. Según Herrera, es necesario superar el “sesgo sedentarista”, al entender la inmovilidad como una opción y no como la norma. A través de estudios de caso, demostró cómo la destrucción de la convivialidad entre humanos y no-humanos genera una “sensación de orfandad frente a la pérdida del territorio”. Esa orfandad no se refiere solo a la pérdida de un pariente, sino a una pérdida cósmica, que rompe los lazos de parentesco con el propio territorio. Finalmente, Herrera trazó una línea histórica entre el colonialismo — con su expropiación de tierras — y las prácticas de plantation contemporáneas, que alteran los ciclos del agua y aceleran los cambios climáticos que impulsan la migración.

Panel I: Enfrentar las profundas destrucciones urbanas: ecologías, políticas, violencias

La reflexión sobre un mundo en destrucción y reconstrucción simbólica, iniciada por Herrera, encontró ecos directos en este panel. Andrés Salcedo (Universidad Nacional de Colombia), en su ponencia “Paisajes sonoros. Propuesta metodológica en el borde sur de Bogotá”, analizó cómo los sentidos participan de la vivencia rural y urbana (“rurbana”), al mostrar de qué manera experimentos acústicos de paisajes sonoros pueden servir como herramienta para la reorganización política, especialmente para las mujeres. Bianca Tavolari (Fundação Getulio Vargas/Mecila), con “La ciudad como testimonio. Violencia estatal y reconfiguración urbana después de la masacre de Carandiru”, presentó un histórico de la masacre, vinculándolo a la historia política y urbana de São Paulo, y destacó los procesos de borramiento y los ejercicios de reapropiación, como la “corporificación” del espacio de la masacre. Gesine Müller (Universität zu Köln/Mecila), en “Transformaciones literarias de una ‘convivialidad’ en violencia. El caso de G. Álvarez Gardeazábal”, demostró a través de ejemplos de la literatura colombiana cómo la ficción llena los vacíos de la historiografía oficial, radiografiando diferentes momentos de violencia estatal y privada.

El debatedor, Tilmann Heil (Universität zu Köln/Mecila), sintetizó las ponencias al mapear tres tipos de destrucción: la extinción (el silencio del campo de cultivo en el “plantationoceno”), la necropolítica (conflictos armados) y el arruinamiento (el borramiento histórico de los crímenes). Sin embargo, resaltó también las posibilidades de resistencia y recreación de nuevas formas de vida, superando la ansiedad paralizante ante la catástrofe. El panel demostró, por lo tanto, que la reconstrucción de la convivialidad pasa necesariamente por una reconstrucción estética del mundo posdestrucción. El foco en las artes y los sentidos (sonido, espacio, literatura) reveló que el mundo no se organiza solo políticamente, sino también estéticamente.

Panel I: Enfrentar las profundas destrucciones urbanas: ecologías, políticas, violencias

— Gesine Müller (Universität zu Köln, Mecila): Transformaciones literarias de una “convivialidad” en violencia: el caso de G. Álvarez Gardeazábal
— Bianca Tavolari (Fundação Getulio Vargas, Mecila): La ciudad como testimonio: Violencia estatal y reconfiguración urbana después de la masacre de Carandiru
— Andrés Salcedo (Universidad Nacional de Colombia): Paisajes Sonoros: propuesta metodológica en el borde sur de Bogotá

Comentário: Tilmann Heil (Universität zu Köln, Mecila)

Moderación: Ramiro Segura (IdICHS, Conicet / Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Mecila)

Foto del autor.

Panel II: Exploraciones del vínculo convivialidad-desigualdad en un mundo en crisis

En el Panel II, se desplazó de lo estético y territorial al campo de la política institucional, con foco en el ascenso de la extrema derecha en perspectiva comparada. Mara Viveros Vigoya (Universidad Nacional de Colombia), en su ponencia “La identidad negada. Género, raza y clase en el populismo de derecha latinoamericano”, comparó a Alvaro Uribe con Jair Bolsonaro, identificando en ambos un imaginario de masculinidad blanca que organiza la política a partir de órdenes sociales, raciales y sexuales. Ella movilizó el concepto de “masculinismo depredador”: un proyecto no solo simbólico, sino de expropiación material de cuerpos y territorios. Se trata de una “identidad silenciosa” que naturaliza la blanquitud y la masculinidad, excluyendo a quienes no encajan.

Sérgio Costa (Freie Universität Berlin/Mecila), con “Desigualdades, diferencias y polarización. Una mirada relacional”, al comparar Brasil con Alemania, argumentó en contra de explicaciones monocausales para la emergencia de la ultraderecha. Para él, es necesario analizar las “situaciones interseccionales”, planteando la pregunta: ¿en qué condiciones los discursos de derecha encuentran resonancia en los sujetos? Su análisis señaló que la derecha expandió su alcance al crear vocabularios que significan experiencias colectivas, mapeando problemas reales, aunque ofreciendo soluciones imaginarias. El debate posterior resaltó que la interseccionalidad es también una interdisciplinariedad y que, ante la apropiación por parte de la derecha de un repertorio históricamente de la izquierda, lo colectivo y lo relacional permanecen como límites a este proyecto y como potencias para socavarlo.

Panel III: Conflictos ambientales y medialidades de la convivialidad

Panel III: Conflictos ambientales y medialidades de la convivialidad

— Gloria Chicote (IdICHS, Conicet / Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Mecila): Conflictos ambientales y feminismos en la literatura de Samanta Schweblin
— Astrid Ulloa (Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Mecila): Políticas de vida y propuestas estéticas en las defensas territoriales-ambientales de mujeres indígenas

Comentario: Barbara Göbel (Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut, Mecila)

Moderación: Carlos Nupia (Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut, Mecila)

Foto del autor.

Proponiendo una síntesis entre los paneles anteriores, esta mesa final demostró cómo estética y política se vuelven inseparables. Gloria Chicote (IdICHS, Conicet-UNLP/Mecila), en “Conflictos ambientales y feminismos en la literatura de Samanta Schweblin”, analizó la representación del antropoceno en la obra de Schweblin a partir de un “momento literario posautónomo”. En ese contexto, la literatura abandona la autorreferencialidad para, a través del género fantástico, resimbolizar las policrisis a nivel local y personal.

Astrid Ulloa (Universidad Nacional de Colombia/Mecila), en “Políticas de vida y propuestas estéticas en las defensas territoriales-ambientales de mujeres indígenas”, en una casi continuidad, desplazó el análisis de la ficción a la actuación de mujeres reales, que utilizan estrategias de vida y estéticas para lidiar con las transformaciones climáticas. Ellas emergen como defensoras de la vida y del territorio frente al extractivismo. El concepto de “cuerpo-territorio”, proveniente de los feminismos comunitarios indígenas, es central aquí, proponiendo una ontología relacional donde cuerpo y territorio son inseparables. Artistas indígenas contemporáneas trabajan esta relación, volviendo lo estético en político y viceversa para confrontar la violencia y proponer otros lenguajes de autorrepresentación. La sanación —de sí y del territorio— emerge del cuidado y del autocuidado frente a las violencias coloniales. Ejemplos concretos de estas “otras estéticas” incluyen la agroecología y la creación de nuevas cartografías para superar el ecocidio y el terricidio.

Reflexión Final

La jornada brindó un inmenso aprendizaje. Cabe preguntarse si, para mantener la estética y la política indisociables, no sería posible pensar también el “masculinismo depredador” de Mara Viveros Vigoya como una práctica estético-política, que encuentra como alternativas los “cuerpos-territorios” y las otras posibilidades de reconstrucción discutidas.

#44

Sao Paulo's Circuits of Diversity: A visit to the TEN Photography Exhibition at Centro Cultural Tomie Ohtake (São Paulo)

Stephanie Dennison (Mecila Senior Fellow, 2025)

In this short video, Mecila Senior Fellow Stephanie Dennison explores an exhibition of photographs taken by José Medeiros of the Teatro Experimental do Negro (Black Experimental Theatre group), one of the most important theatre troupes to emerge in 20th-century Brazil. Founded in 1944 by actor, director, and activist Abdias Nascimento, the group played a key role in the country’s cultural history. Stephanie is particularly interested in viewing the exhibition in the context of the so-called circuitos da diversidade (circuits of diversity), a phrase coined by scholar Gilberto Sobrinho to denote the shift in the representation of Afro-descendant cultural expressions in cultural centres such as Tomie Ohtake and Itaú Cultural in the city of São Paulo over the last ten years.

#43

Uma visita ao Museu das Favelas: saberes, lutas e pertencimento

tita – Letizia Patriarca (Mecila Junior Fellow, 2025)

O Museu das Favelas, em toda sua diversa potência, nos fez atravessar lutas sociais diversas, expressões de festa, sonoridades e estéticas periféricas, que criam linguagens próprias, muito além do imaginário recorrente sobre as favelas.

Era um dia frio, mas a visita ao Museu das Favelas foi de aquecer os ânimos. Até saiu um pouco de sol para a foto da fachada. Contrastavam o azul do céu, a colonialidade do prédio e toda a força pulsante e incapturável do que se vivencia n(o museus d)as favelas.

Emanava certa imponência, que eu diria que não vinha do prédio histórico, com sua arquitetura colonial e muito bem reformado, ao lado do igualmente histórico e colonial espaço dos jesuítas no Pátio do Colégio, no centro da cidade de São Paulo. Para mim, era a fala de educadories, pesquisadories e a intensa circulação de dezenas de jovens, com animação, tirando selfies por todo museu, que dava todo o gás.

Vera e Mônica Cardim organizaram em família essa visita, que recebeu também a minha família, além de quem pesquisa no Mecila. A questão racial se impunha a partir de nossos corpos, entre pessoas negras, brancas, alemãs, italianas e brasileiras, que trabalham e pesquisam dentro e fora do museu.

Esse contínuo movimento de troca de saberes, dentro e fora, é um dos objetivos do museu e da Biblioteca CRIA. Começamos então nossa visita, com Claudia Onorato e Sidnei Rodrigues contando do acervo e de suas atividades, que incluem lançamentos de livros no primeiro sábado do mês.

Foto da autora.

A biblioteca também recebe doações de livros, com foco principal nas temáticas sobre favelas e periferias, dando destaque para escritores e escritoras periféricos independentes, e pesquisadores. Dentre as palavras ACOLHIMENTO e PERTENCIMENTO, raios de luz entravam e faziam brilhar autorias como Sueli Carneiro e Itamar Vieira Junior nas capas de livros do acervo.

Biblioteca CRIA (foto da autora) e Vera Cardim (foto de Jasmin Wrobel).

Seguimos para um momento de partilha, com a museóloga Danieli Leite, a pesquisadora Érika Augusta e a coordenadora Vera Cardim. Nossos interesses de pesquisa foram rapidamente trocados, para também conhecermos a “Pesquisa de Cria: Encontro de Saberes”. Esse projeto promove encontros presenciais com pessoas pesquisadoras acadêmicas e não acadêmicas e grupos e lideranças periféricas, para compartilhar saberes e experiências de atuação a partir de múltiplas fontes, linguagens e expressões. Dentre os encontros recentes, destacaram um com mulheres trancistas, em que foi possível unir, em práticas artísticas, pertencimento e desenvolvimento econômico através do cabelo a um encontro de promoção de saúde mental.

Desde a recente fundação do museu, foi ressaltada a importância de representar a pluralidade de corpos e vivências, também refletida na equipe. Atualmente o museu conta com cerca de 80% de pessoas pretas e pardas, sendo cerca de 40% mulheres negras. Quase metade da equipe se identifica como LGBTIAPN+.

A coordenadora Vera Cardim apresentou o histórico e todo o intenso e diverso trabalho que a equipe faz. Segundo ela, “as necessidades são diversas, questões atravessam”, de forma que não podia ser só um museu de arte. Por isso, inclui diversas atividades de troca de saberes e pesquisa.

Fundado em 2022, o Museu das Favelas se encontrava originalmente na região dos Campos Elíseos, mas teve que deixar o espaço por conta de políticas violentas de gentrificação, inclusive contra a Favela do Moinho. Essa mudança de território foi evidenciada porque se conecta diretamente com políticas e discussões que envolvem o museu. Também abriu espaço para a discussão sobre o que seriam favelas e sua infinita pluralidade, não se restringindo a territórios afastados do centro da cidade.

Apesar de recente, o Museu das Favelas é bastante visitado e tem grande visibilidade nas redes sociais – o que pudemos observar com o intenso movimento de jovens nos três andares, acessíveis por escadas e elevador. Além de exposições no espaço do museu, o Museu das Favelas também conta com exposições virtuais: atualmente estão em cartaz Favela-Raiz, O samba merece um palácio e Funkeiros cults 3D.

No último andar encontra-se a sonora e imersiva exposição temporária Racionais Mc’s: O quinto elemento, em cartaz até 31 de agosto. A diversidade de materiais, de discos e cartas a vídeos de bastidores, permite acompanhar a história do Brasil dos últimos 35 anos através do famosíssimo grupo de rap. Os integrantes Mano Brown, Edi Rock, KL Jay e Ice Blue são apresentados em detalhes, com toda força poética e crítica, através dos saberes que produziram em seus discos e atuações na vida.

 

Fotos da autora. À direita, abaixo, foto de Ernesto García.

 

Nos primeiros andares, o Museu das Favelas conta com sua primeira exposição de longa duração, Sobre vivências. Reunindo manifestações culturais de artistas periféricos e coletivos e objetos fruto de reflexão coletiva de diversas comunidades, a exposição está organizada em cinco módulos. Cada módulo busca refletir a multiplicidade dos territórios e das vivências das favelas, sem jamais definir o que seriam. Para refletir a diversidade das vivências nas/das favelas, cada módulo conta com verbos no infinitivo: SER, EXISTIR, MORAR, CELEBRAR e SONHAR.

O Museu das Favelas, em toda sua diversa potência, nos fez atravessar lutas sociais diversas, expressões de festa, sonoridades e estéticas periféricas, que criam língua(gens) próprias, muito além do imaginário recorrente.

Exposição Sobre vivências. Fotos da autora

Foto: Ernesto García

#42

Behind the Scenes of the Textile Industry, Korean Barbecue, and Public Health: Our Field Trip to Bom Retiro Neighbourhood, São Paulo

Camila Infanger Almeida (Mecila Doctoral Researcher / USP)

A walking tour led our fellows through the layered histories of migration, public health, and urban memory.

Our journey started at one of São Paulo’s most remarkable landmarks: Luz Station. It also set the tone for how the research team perceives the city—as a walkable space, interwoven with public transportation, which all participants were encouraged to use to reach the meeting point.

Our group was a mix of people born and bred in São Paulo, like myself, and others, in different levels, unfamiliar with the area. This created an intriguing initial atmosphere, as we wondered how the asymmetries in our experiences with the neighbourhood would play out during the guided tour. Spoiler alert: the research team managed to surprise us all with stops that traced Bom Retiro’s rich history of migration and public health.

Prof. Jeffrey Lesser opened the visit with a brief overview of the neighbourhood’s immigration trail, highlighting its African and Indigenous heritage, previous to the more recent waves of European, South American, and Asian migration. This introduction provided a helpful framework that remained in the background as we observed the diversity of people represented in the streets.

My designated guide was Alexandra Llovet, a medical student member of Jeff’s research team, who kindly led us through Parque da Luz, earning everyone’s attention by pointing out a monument illustrating early 1900s Brazil-Italy relations and by sharing curious facts, such as the existence of a former aquarium beneath the park.

The tour narrative included insights into the area’s architecture, such as adaptations to accommodate sweatshops, textile commerce, and storage facilities. We also learned about the walling off of certain streets—possibly linked to policies from a time when immigrants were viewed as potential disease carriers, thus subject to sanitation measures that were, in effect, closer to disinfection efforts.

One of my favourite moments was having a peek at a hidden gem: a small village street, likely still paved with original cobblestones. It was first populated by Italian chocolate makers, whose name still appears on the entrance sign, and is now home to immigrants working in the textile industry.

The various elements of Bom Retiro’s population started to come together around what struck me as a common denominator: the local public health centre (UBS). Throughout the tour, Alex and Briana Yang, another research team’s member, frequently referred to the work of health agents in the community, access to healthcare, and how the UBS influenced the logic of spaces like the park.

The moment we walked past the UBS, we also bridged the two ends of the research scope: migration and health. Next, we arrived at the Museum of Public Health, located in a beautiful historic building—one that few people strolling through Bom Retiro would expect to find there. Our warm and knowledgeable guide, Leo, began our visit with a short talk on Emílio Ribas and Vital Brazil, major figures in Brazilian epidemiology.

Standing around the vehicles once used to immunise newly arrived migrants in a Brazil fearful of contagious diseases, we cringed at stories about the toxic substances once sprayed into Bom Retiro’s air.

Upstairs, we learned about Brazil’s immunisation campaigns—the highlight being the personification of Zé Gotinha, the friendly mascot created to promote childhood vaccination—and explored unexpected intersections between spiders, snakes, and medicine, including a less-poisonous side to the infamous jararaca snake.

We then had a moment to chat and hear in more depth about the research team’s perspectives on their work and their personal connections to the area, its stories, and its peoples.

My first Mecila field trip ended with a joyful meal in a very typical spot, where we got to try Bom Retiro’s latest culinary influence—brought by one of the most recent waves of immigration: a delicious Korean barbecue dinner.

Many thanks to everyone who helped organize the field trip. It was truly a day to remember.

Pictures: Benjamin Junge, Camila Infanger Almeida, Carolina Motoki, Coco Sandoval

#41

Relationalities in Violence, Intersectional Alliances, Digital Inequalities, and More-than-Human Interactions – Kick-Off Workshop 2025

Carlos Nupia (Postdoctoral Investigator, Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut: Medialities of Conviviality)
Philipp Naucke (Postdoctoral Investigator, Freie Universität Berlin: Politics of Conviviality)

Drawing on Mecila’s interdisciplinary focus on conviviality and inequality, the event kicked off a year of discussions on urgent global issues, including violence, re-nationalization, digital divides, intersectional alliances, and more-than-human relations.

The Mecila Kick-Off Workshop 2025, held on 8–9 April at Cebrap in São Paulo, brought together scholars from Latin America and Germany to explore the theme of relationalities. Rooted in Mecila’s interdisciplinary focus on conviviality and inequality, the event launched a year of dialogue around pressing global issues, from violence, re-nationalization and digital disparities to intersectional alliances and more-than-human dynamics. The meeting highlighted interdisciplinary dialogues, collaborative thinking, and the engagement of both senior and emerging scholars.

The Workshop opened with a warm welcome by Adrian Lavalle (Cebrap / USP) and Rúrion Melo (Mecila / USP), setting a collaborative tone for a gathering that aimed to explore the theme of “relationalities” across multiple social, political, and epistemic dimensions. They emphasized the pertinence of thinking in terms of relationalities, noting that while not a new idea, relational thinking forms a foundational epistemological paradigm in the social sciences. Lavalle underscored the multidimensional nature of social phenomena and the challenge of identifying and articulating interconnected dimensions of inequality. Mecila, he argued, offers an ideal environment for advancing such interdisciplinary and relational inquiry.

With scholars and practitioners from Latin America and Europe, the workshop unfolded through a series of rich panels and discussions that underscored the complexity and urgency of relational approaches in a world marked by intensifying inequality and global crises.

Adrian Lavalle (Cebrap / USP) and Rúrion Melo (Mecila / USP) welcomed the public pointing out that relational thinking forms a foundational epistemological paradigm in the social sciences. Photo: Joel Silva

The first panel, “New Faces of Violence”, examined how contemporary violence transcends traditional legal and political frameworks. Beatriz Besen de Oliveira (USP) offered insights from her research comparing radical right-wing youth in Brazil and Germany. Her work traced how these movements construct a threatening “other,” informed by narratives of national decline, moral crisis, and resistance against pluralistic democracy. Karolina Wigura (FU Berlin / University of Warsaw) introduced the concept of “post-traumatic sovereignty”, explaining how nations — particularly in Eastern Europe — respond to historical trauma and the perceived erosion of statehood. Drawing from the war in Ukraine and Eastern European history, she argued that sovereignty is experienced not as a given but as a vulnerable, emotionally charged status, shaped by collective memory and a persistent fear of loss. Pedro Dallari (USP) then explored how contemporary conflicts challenge the international legal order, citing the erosion of norms around the use of force and the limitations of institutions like the UN Security Council. He reflected on how public opinion and civil society historically underpinned the international regime, and how this foundation is now destabilized by unilateral state actions and technological transformations in warfare.

The second panel, “More-than-Human Relationalities”, addressed non-anthropocentric modes of knowledge and political agency. Alexandre Nodari (Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina) reflected on the parallels between literature and shamanism, emphasizing fiction’s anthropomorphic nature and its limits in truly accessing other species’ modes of expression. He challenged the boundaries of language, fiction, and epistemology in human-nonhuman relations. Anne Broocks (FU Berlin) offered an ethnographic account of multispecies knowledge in the Amazon, showing how soils, forests, and humans co-create knowledge landscapes shaped by colonial histories, resource extraction, and local practices in Bolivia. The concept of “knowledge tipping points” illustrates moments when dominant understandings shift due to ecological, political, or economic pressures. Renato Sztutman (USP) closed the panel by advocating for a more-than-human politics. Drawing from Amerindian perspectivism, he argued for epistemologies that resist the binary of belief versus knowledge. His analysis of Guarani and Kaiowa communities illustrated how reclaiming territory is simultaneously a creative act of restoring cosmological and political life. 

Panel “New Faces of Violence”: contemporary violence transcends traditional legal and political frameworks. Photo: Joel Silva

Panel “More-Than-Human Relationalities”: non-anthropocentric modes of knowledge and political agency. Photo: Joel Silva

In the afternoon, a roundtable on “Intersectional Alliances and the (Fallacious) Critique of Identitarianism” unpacked the backlash against identity-based struggles. Nitzan Shoshan (Colmex), Bianca Santana (Casa Sueli Carneiro), and Sérgio Costa (Mecila / FU Berlin) debated the critiques of identitarianism, emphasizing the need to understand identities as starting points for political articulation and alliance-building rather than as fixed categories. Nitzan Shoshan linked this critique to right-wing movements that themselves rely on identitarian logics. Bianca Santana reframed identity politics as a struggle for universal rights that recognizes difference, rather than a narrow self-interest. Sérgio Costa argued that universalism often disguises its positionality and called for alliances that respect diversity while seeking transformative solidarity.

The day concluded with an introduction of a first group of 2025 Mecila Fellows highlighting the plurality of voices shaping Mecila’s relational research agenda. Monica Cerqueira Cardim presented her project that examines African diaspora through Black photography, exploring themes of imperial violence. Igor Sousa focuses on how development projects intersect with Black empowerment initiatives. Hanna Nohe’s current project explores the role of waste in modern society and its cultural implications. Ana Coutinho conducts ethnographic research on Kayapo Tawa and Karaja Tawa, studying the cultural significance and transformation of ritual masks.

Roundtable “Intersectional Alliances and the (Falacious) Critique of Identitarianism”: identities as starting points for political articulation and alliance-building rather than as fixed categories. Photo: Joel Silva 

The second day of the workshop opened with a focus on the institutional research areas coordinated by the three Postdoctoral Investigators: Carlos Nupia (Mecila / IAI, Medialities of Conviviality) Philipp Naucke (Mecila / FU Berlin, Politics of Conviviality), and Tilmann Heil (Mecila / UzK, [Hi]Stories of Conviviality), each briefly presenting the thematic scopes of their respective areas and the broader objectives of the Mecila framework.

This was followed by the panel “International Academic Cooperation: The Merian Centres and the Challenging Re-Nationalisation Tendencies”. Barbara Potthast (Mecila / UzK) traced their origins to earlier debates on Area Studies and the impact of 9/11, noting how Kompetenznetzwerke were precursors to today’s Centres, highlighting the challenges of transnational administration. Brenda Focás (CALAS) shared insights from the CALAS Merian Centre, discussing its activities, funding phases, and structural challenges in Argentina’s academic landscape, such as defunding and brain drain. Raul Machado (Fapesp / USP) emphasized Fapesp’s growing role in international cooperation, sharing historical narratives to illustrate how collaboration can catalyze scientific development, particularly in Brazil.

The midday panel addressed “Knowledge Asymmetries and Digital Inequalities”, moderated by Gloria Chicote (Mecila / UNLP). Alvaro Comin (Cebrap / USP) examined how digital platforms and AI reshape labor markets, disproportionately impacting creative jobs in the Global North while reinforcing precarious labor conditions in the Global South. Carolina Parreiras (USP) discussed digital inequality in Rio’s favelas, emphasizing the interplay between infrastructure, access, and local uses of technology, and introduced the concept of “meaningful connectedness”. She also analysed how digital devices are appropriated in marginalized contexts and how digital inequalities intersect with territorial militarization. Paula Menezes (Universidade de Campinas) explored the technopolitics of education, particularly how algorithmic tools affect teaching practices, educational policy, and structural inequalities. She criticized the seduction and governance power of platforms in Brazilian schools and their alignment with neoliberal educational reforms since the 1990s.

Panel “International Academic Cooperation: The Merian Centres and the Challenging Re-Nationalisation Tendencies”. Photo: Joel Silva

Panel “Knowledge Asymmetries and Digital Inequalities”: labor, technology infraestructure and education in debate. Photo: Joel Silva

In the afternoon, a second group of Mecila Fellows were introduced. tita (Letizia Patriarca) discussed her ethnographic work on sex work and migration between Brazil and Italy. Livia de Souza explored the political representation of Black women in Brazil, focusing on non-electoral spaces of agency and the relational nature of political demands. Her work is based on a constructivist framework for analyzing representation. Finally, Wolfram Nitsch introduced his interdisciplinary project on “vehicular fictions” and urban mobility, connecting literary studies with sociotechnical imaginaries and urban inequalities.

The day concluded with final remarks by Barbara Potthast, Sérgio Costa, and Tomaz Amorim, reflecting on the thematic continuity from previous years and informing the year’s key themes for the next three years: violence (2026), digital inequalities (2027), and transitions from the global to the planetary (2028). They also highlighted Mecila’s commitment to fostering interdisciplinary research, collaboration with non-academic actors, and critical engagement with the complexities of conviviality and inequality, and expressing gratitude to participants and the organizing team.

: Watch the full recordings of the Kick-Off Workshop 2025 on Mecila’s YouTube channel.

#40

Divulgação científica no Brasil: desafios e avanços rumo à democratização do conhecimento

Global Convivial Forum 

Melanie Metzen (Events and Outreach Coordinator)

Evento de Divulgação Científica da Fiocruz Brasília reuniu especialistas para debater políticas públicas, inclusão e estratégias para fortalecer a comunicação da ciência no país.

 

Entre os dias 13 e 15 de agosto de 2024, a Fiocruz Brasília promoveu a 2ª Semana de Divulgação Científica, reunindo pesquisadores, professores e comunicadores em um esforço coletivo para fortalecer a divulgação científica no Brasil. Pude participar do evento que teve como objetivos fomentar políticas públicas para a área e desenvolver estratégias para enfrentar desafios contemporâneos, como o negacionismo e a desinformação.

Uma das questões centrais do encontro foi a análise das iniciativas conduzidas por instituições como a Fiocruz, a Fapesp, o CNPq e o Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovação (MCTI) nos últimos anos, bem como a construção de perspectivas futuras para a divulgação científica no país. Desde a pandemia de COVID-19, observa-se um crescimento no investimento e na visibilidade das iniciativas de comunicação da ciência. Entretanto, esse movimento enfrenta desafios estruturais e institucionais, que exigem soluções coordenadas.

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Mesa de abertura 2ª Semana de Divulgação Científica. Imagem: Sérgio Velho

Graça Caldas, professora e pesquisadora do Labjor/Unicamp e Wagner Vasconcelos da assessoria de comunicação, Fiocruz Brasília. Imagem: Sérgio Velho

 

Diante de um cenário em que apenas 21% da população brasileira concluiu o ensino superior e menos de 1% possui pós-graduação, torna-se fundamental democratizar o acesso ao conhecimento. As instituições de pesquisa não apenas produzem conhecimento, mas também têm a responsabilidade de traduzi-lo e disseminá-lo para diferentes segmentos da sociedade. A popularização da ciência deve ser compreendida como parte essencial da missão acadêmica, promovendo a alfabetização científica e ampliando o diálogo com públicos diversos.

Na conferência de abertura, Juana Nunes, diretora de Popularização da Ciência, Tecnologia e Educação Científica da Sedes/MCTI, destacou a necessidade de estruturar políticas nacionais para a divulgação científica, a fim de coordenar e potencializar os investimentos na área. Um dos desafios apontados foi a fragmentação do sistema de ensino superior no Brasil, que conta com instituições federais, estaduais e privadas frequentemente operando de maneira isolada e competitiva, dificultando a integração de esforços.

A diversidade também emergiu como um elemento crucial na discussão sobre a comunicação da ciência. A ampliação do alcance da divulgação científica para populações em situação de vulnerabilidade social e econômica é um passo essencial para garantir inclusão étnico-racial e de identidade de gênero. Não basta tornar a produção acadêmica disponível; é preciso construir pontes eficazes entre o conhecimento e a sociedade, de forma a torná-lo acessível e relevante.

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Um dos debates mais instigantes do evento ocorreu na mesa “Divulgação Científica em Tempos de Negacionismo”, com participação da pesquisadora Graça Caldas, do Laboratório de Estudos Avançados em Jornalismo (Labjor/Unicamp). Caldas ressaltou a necessidade de repensar modelos tradicionais de comunicação científica que dependem de intermediários, como jornalistas, editoras e revistas especializadas. Segundo a pesquisadora, uma das tendências observada nos últimos anos – o fortalecimento da presença digital de cientistas e instituições – pode ser um caminho para ampliar o alcance e garantir interação direta com o público, reduzindo a dispersão de informações.

Luis Amorim (Museu da Vida), durante sua participação da mesa “A ciência, a arte e o lúdico”, também destacou o fato de que a pesquisa sobre comunicação científica no Brasil ainda está em processo de consolidação e carece de um referencial teórico mais robusto. Embora existam programas de mestrado na área, como os oferecidos pelo LabJor/Unicamp e pela Fiocruz, ainda não há cursos de doutorado específicos em divulgação científica, o que limita a formação avançada de especialistas.

Outro desafio apontado foi a carência de metodologias mais robustas para avaliar o impacto das iniciativas de comunicação científica no Brasil. Essa lacuna metodológica reforça a necessidade de uma política estruturada e de maior investimento na área. No entanto, avanços já podem ser observados: atualmente, o CNPq exige a inclusão de um plano de comunicação como parte dos projetos de pesquisa financiados pela agência, um passo fundamental para integrar a divulgação científica ao processo de produção do conhecimento.

Ao refletirmos sobre o futuro da divulgação científica, torna-se evidente que sua consolidação depende de um esforço contínuo de fortalecimento institucional, capacitação de profissionais e construção de políticas públicas eficazes. Somente com uma abordagem estruturada e integrada será possível garantir que o conhecimento científico cumpra seu papel social e contribua para uma sociedade mais informada e participativa.

Diante desse cenário, as iniciativas de comunicação científica do Mecila ilustram a importância de estratégias contínuas e adaptáveis. Desde 2018, o centro tem investido em diferentes formatos de disseminação do conhecimento, passando por um processo de aprendizado constante e ajustes estratégicos. A aposta em tecnologias digitais, como podcasts, newsletters, um site multilíngue e comunicação ativa em redes sociais, tem permitido alcançar públicos diversos. Além disso, parcerias institucionais, como com o Conselho Latino Americano de Ciências Sociais (CLACSO), e a publicação de working papers em conjunto com o Instituto Iberoamericano de Berlim, reforçam o compromisso do centro com a democratização da ciência. Esses esforços demonstram como a comunicação científica pode ser aprimorada por meio da experimentação de formatos não tradicionais, contribuindo para aumentar o alcance e acessibilidade dos resultados de pesquisa.

#39

Putting Care on the Political Agenda: International Symposium Care that Matters, Matters of Care

Global Convivial Forum 

Raquel Rojas (Postdoctoral Investigador, Mecila-FU Berlin)

Roundtable: Care and Inequalities Across Time and Space with Barbara Potthast, Encarnación Gutiérrez-Rodríguez, Nadya Araujo Guimarães, Karina Batthyány and Raquel Rojas

The International Symposium Care that Matters, Matters of Care provided a unique platform to rethink the place of care in our societies. By bringing together experts from diverse fields and countries, it reaffirmed the critical role governments — within the G20 and beyond — must play in addressing care inequalities and building a just, equitable social organization of care.

 

Care is the foundation of human existence, yet it has historically been undervalued and relegated to the private sphere, disproportionately burdening women and girls. Feminist movements have long sought to bring care into the political realm, and recent years have seen significant progress, particularly in Latin America. A notable example is its inclusion in the G20’s latest discussions.

The International Symposium Care that Matters, Matters of Care took place on October 14–15, 2024, at the University of São Paulo (USP). Organized as part of Brazil’s G20 Presidency and the T20 discussions, it was hosted by Mecila with support from DWIH São Paulo and USP’s International Cooperation Office (Aucani). The event brought together researchers, policymakers, and civil society representatives to discuss care policies as tools for addressing intersecting inequalities.

The symposium began with a welcome address featuring Nina von Sartori (German Embassy in Brasília), Sérgio Proença (Aucani), Adrián Lavalle (CEBRAP), Marcio Weichert (DWIH São Paulo), and Sérgio Costa (Mecila). The opening roundtable examined the interplay between care and inequalities, exploring its historical roots and global connections. Barbara Potthast (University of Cologne) discussed key aspects of the social organization of care in Latin America over time. Nadya Araujo Guimarães (USP) highlighted the region’s contributions to conceptualizing care and developing the field. Karina Batthyány (CLACSO/UdelaR) presented insights into Uruguay’s Sistema Nacional Integrado de Cuidados, the first care system in the region, showcasing its successes and challenges, and Encarnación Gutiérrez-Rodríguez (University of Frankfurt) explored the interconnections between care regimes in Europe and Latin America, emphasizing care chains and migration.

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The second day began with the panel “Making Care Visible,” which focused on care’s diverse aspects across life cycles and social structures. Priscila Vieira (CEBRAP) discussed elder care in São Paulo, highlighting caregivers’ physical and emotional burdens, social isolation, and mistrust of the state. Eugenia Rausky (CONICET/UNLP) offered an anthropological perspective on childhood, revealing how children in lower-income households often provide care, challenging traditional narratives of children as solely care recipients. Talja Blokland (Humboldt University) addressed the complexities of state care programs, emphasizing the tensions between trust-building with beneficiaries and bureaucratic professionalism. Landy Sánchez (El Colegio de México) presented an innovative analysis of how climate change exacerbates care crises, spotlighting the intersection of two global challenges. Commentators Luiza Nassif Pires (UNICAMP) and Eugenia Brage (CONICET/PAGU) enriched the discussion, bridging diverse perspectives.

A subsequent panel explored strategies to politicize care and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in exposing inequalities. Raquel Rojas (FU Berlin) and Laura Flamand (El Colegio de México) presented a comparative study of impacts of the pandemic on inequalities, emphasizing the effects of diverse care provision models. Eryka Galindo (University of Heidelberg) examined the pandemic’s impact on food security in Brazil, linking household-level care to public policies and multinational corporate practices. Regina Vieira (UNIFESP) addressed the challenges of adapting global care policy indexes to heterogeneous contexts, while Jana Silverman (UFABC) highlighted the struggles and resilience of Brazil’s domestic workers, a key pillar of care provision in the region. Discussants Miriam Nobre (Siempreviva Organização Feminista) and Izadora Xavier do Monte (Mecila) provided critical perspectives on these issues.

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Panel I: Making care visible with Priscila Vieira, María Eugenia Rausky, Talja Blokland, Landy Sánchez, Bianca Tavolari, Luiza Nassif Pires and Eugenia Brage

 

The final panel explored policy approaches in Latin America to recognize and redistribute care responsibilities. Mariana Mazzini Marcondes (Secretaria Nacional da Política de Cuidados e Família) shared Brazil’s experience advancing a care policy through active civil society participation. Laura Pautassi (CONICET/UBA) emphasized the importance of recognizing care as a universal right and shared regional milestones toward this goal. Patricia Cossani Padilla (UN Women) highlighted the need to integrate care into normative frameworks to ensure sustained progress beyond political cycles. Closing remarks by Guita Grin Debert (UNICAMP) and Lorena Hakak (FGV RI) underscored the importance of embedding care as a transversal element in public policy.

Overall, the International Symposium Care that Matters, Matters of Care provided a unique platform to rethink the place of care in our societies. By bringing together experts from diverse fields and countries, it reaffirmed the critical role governments—within the G20 and beyond—must play in addressing care inequalities and building a just, equitable social organization of care.

Mecila researchers also had the opportunity to meet with Germany’s Federal Minister for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth, Lisa Paus, who attended the G20 Gender Equality Ministerial Meeting in Brasília in early October. Their discussions focused on the outcomes of the International Care Symposium and highlighted the urgent need for states to work towards a more equitable distribution of care and the contributions of academia to this task.

Watch the whole event now on the Mecila YouTube channel.

 

Images by Vitória Zandonadi and Iris Brochsztain.