Seminar

Territory, Communication and Power: Approaches the thought of Boaventura de Sousa Santos

Inesita Soares de Araújo

José Manoel Miranda de Oliveira

July 8, 2015, 10h00

Room 2, CES-Coimbra

Abstract

The seminar brings together two presentations on reflections resulting from the first half of post-doctoral internships of two Brazilian researchers under supervision of Boaventura de Sousa Santos.

Part 1
The first half of the seminar will discuss the spatial changes caused by dispossession policies and subsequent territorialisation, under the theoretical guidelines of Boaventura Santos (1988, 1999, 2004, 2013 and 2014), so to understand the following correlations: the repercussions of discourses of destruction of the traditional culture of Northern Goiás population; the process of transforming negative discourses into a language of acceptance of strategies determined by new symbologies with respect to time and space. Finally, the power structures created with the territorial division. The counterpoints to the discussions about what happened in the North of Goiás were structured in the context of ongoing discussions on Portuguese identity, under the spelling agreement between the Portuguese-speaking countries and the political and cultural situation of Portugal, after joining the  EU, both treated in the text as objects of dispossession.

Part 2
In the field of health, communication is seen through an instrumental point of view, withholding its nature of social process that produces relations of knowledge and power. One consequence is its absenteeism in the analyses of processes of social determinants of health and in the indicators of social inequality systems that sustain their confrontation policies. The seminar will reflect on this scenario in the light of the Boaventura de Sousa Santos. Considering that the research’s ultimate goal – a methodology of production of indicators that relate communication with social inequalities in health, we will discuss the possibility of thinking about the state of affairs known as health neglect and the corresponding policies as characteristic of colonial societies, as opposed to his current view as a phenomenon of expression of inequalities, about to be overcome. The understanding of this network of relationships affects the methodological procedures of production of indicators, which requires the active participation of the "neglected" population. Intercultural translation and deep listening are concepts that enable the discussion on the challenges of this task, which involves not only the absences, but also the emergence of potentially transformative ways of acting.

Bio notes


José Manoel de Oliveira Miranda
Postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Social Studies, University of Coimbra, linked to the Research Group on Democracy, Citizenship and Law, with a grant from the Higher Education Personnel Improvement Coordination of Brazil (CAPES). Holds a PhD in in Geography and a MA in Education. Professor of the Federal University of Tocantins. Member of the research groups Philosophical Studies on Human Formation and Study and Research of Socio-Cultural Praxis, both of CNPQ. Main areas of interest: philosophy, politics, sociology and urban geography.


Inesita Soares de Araujo
CES - University of Coimbra Postdoctoral Researcher, under the Research Group on Democracy, Citizenship and Law. PhD in Communication and Culture (UFRJ); researcher at the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, the Research Laboratory in Communication and Health; Professor of the Graduate Programme in Information and Communication in Health and the PhD in International Global Health, Human Rights and Life Policies (CES/Fiocruz); leader of the research group on Communication and Health (CNPq); coordinator of the GT Comunicación y Salud of the Asociación Latinoamericana de la Comunicación. Area of expertise: Communication and Public Policies. Key topics of interest: Communication and Health, in its political, epistemological, theoretical and methodological, institutional dimensions and its agents and practices; relations between communication, inequality, inequality and inequity in health; production of senses from and in health; research methodology, communication planning and evaluation.
 

Activity within the  Democracy, Citizenship and Law Research Group (DECIDe)