AN ANTI-RACIST DECOLONIAL PROJECT: AFFIRMATIVE ACTIONS IN THE GRADUATE STUDIES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF BRASILIA

Abstract

This article deals with the Affirmative Action Policy approved for all graduate courses at the University of Brasilia in 2020. It develops two central arguments. First, aiming at not expropriating white and black professors and students from their achievements, we highlight how the approval of this policy was a product of their anti-racist activism. Second, we explore the potential of the new legislation approved at the university, committed to diversity in graduate school, relating it to a decolonial and counter-hegemonic political project, with epistemological effects that can mean an opening for production of black-centered, indigenous-centered, and quilombola-centered knowledge production.