Gathered at the university: national projects, alterity, and the mediations of anthropology
Abstract
The encounter of professors with cultural diversity has become a common experience in higher education institutions based on the policies of democratization of access to universities in Brazil in the first decades of the 21st century. This article presents “points of contact” with diversity in the context of an institution created under the guidelines of international South-South academic cooperation. Through the description of situations experienced in teaching activities, a reflection is sought on the processes of identity construction promoted by agencies associated with the formation of ethnic and national boundaries. Anthropology emerges as a mediator to this encounter in the record of the experience that articulates theory to the post-colonial situations found in teaching relationships, locating interdisciplinary problem-spaces, common values in the context of the administrative structures and a sensitive approach to the history shared by the Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries (CPLP).
