DE-LORDING THE ACADEMY: AFFIRMATIVE ACTION IN GRADUATE PROGRAMMES

Abstract

The article reflects on the affinity and overlap between criteria of academic excellence, coloniality of knowledge and institutional racism. It is an ethnography of the affirmative action policy for graduate programmes at the University of Brasília. In order to combine local confrontations with other long-standing agendas that are triggered simultaneously, the article retrieves events that preceded the year 2020, such as the #BlackLivesMatter movement. Its aim is to highlight the need to dessenhorizar (de-lord) the academy, which means de-empowering and de-mastering it out of its plantation mode of existence. It also stresses the importance of ethnographic practice in the teaching and research institutions we operate, where ethical dilemmas in our daily lives have crucial political and epistemological implications.