NOTICE | DUE TO THE CONDITIONS IMPOSED BY THE PANDEMIC, THE 2022 EDITION WILL BE HELD ONLINE. MORE INFORMATION AVAILABLE SOON

 THE INTERNATIONAL SUMMER SCHOOL “EPISTEMOLOGIES OF THE SOUTH” IS A COLLECTIVE SPACE DESIGNED TO MEET, EXPERIENCE, DISCUSS AND BROADEN THE EPISTEMOLOGIES OF THE SOUTH.

The Epistemologies of the South are an epistemological and political proposal that put into question the hegemonic centrality of the modern eurocentric matrix project and wager on the broadening of cognitive justice and social justice recognising the impossibility of one existing without the other. The South, in this context, is not a geographical place, rather a metaphor for the unjust suffering promoted by the oppression of colonialism, capitalism and hetero-patriarchy and for a plural space of epistemological creativity closely linked to knowledges forged in resistances and struggles. The South thus thought is heterogeneous and includes diverse spaces, varied experiences and an infinity of knowledges. The Epistemologies of the South recognize these differences and value them, encouraging South-South dialogues, as well as South-North dialogues.

It is imperative to know, value and articulate epistemological, pedagogical and methodological proposals that promote the struggle against epistemicide, that is, the destruction of knowledges not validated or made non-existent by the criteria of the modern scientific canon.

The Summer School is a crossroads for the expansion of political and epistemological imagination, which does not exhaust itself in the denouncement of capitalist, hegemonic, colonialist and hetero-patriarchal thinking. It also aims to build and think different alternatives, at different scales, that, through intercultural translation, can contribute to the reinvention of the narratives on what comes next. Articulating art, science and knowledges of resistances and struggles, the work will be collective and will bring together Boaventura de Sousa Santos, researchers from the Epistemologies of the South group, poets and musicians, as well as forty participants from all over the world.

As in the previous editions, a heterogeneous group is expected in terms of origin, knowledge, age and experience of work and struggle. This summer school will be a space of mutual exchange and co-learnings that will provide the means to imagine and draw utopias from concrete experiences and knowledges

The Summer School is self-funded and non-profit. The registration fee is used to guarantee each participant's accommodation in a shared room at the Hotel das Termas da Curia; breakfasts, snacks, lunches and dinners throughout the course; reading materials and other materials used in workshops; round-trip Coimbra-Curia. Tuition also allows funds for 4 scholarships for participants with no economic conditions, an affirmative action mechanism; as well as the accommodation and honorariums for invited workshop coordinators. It also covers the cost of accommodation and meals for the school's organizers and CES trainers, who receive no honorarium.

The Summer School will have Portuguese and English as working languages. Simultaneous translation of Portuguese/English and English/Portuguese during the plenary sessions will be ensured by professional translators. We appeal to the shared responsibility of participants who can assist in translation during the workshops. Teachers will always be available to collaborate.

Curia, near Coimbra, with its natural park as landscape, is a scenario that allows nine days of intense and quiet learning and mutual enrichment. The thermal baths golden age happened between the 1920's and 1950's, after that thermal tourism declined, leading to the closure of services and the progressive decay of many of the existing facilities. The annual presence of the Summer School in Curia is also a way of contributing to a fragile local economy on which many workers depend. The hotel where the Summer School will be installed welcomes many hotel-school interns hotels and guarantees tranquillity and prices that would be impractical in an urban context.

We understand the course as a space for socialising, well-being, and the sharing of heterogeneous knowledges and mutual learnings between all. We recognise the centrality of production of knowledge beyond the walls of academia while seeking artistic production to challenge political imagination.

Academics, artists, other professionals, students and activists will share classes, science and social struggles workshops, art workshops, social and leisure time, conversations, reflection spaces, field trips and times planned by the participants. We propose diversity and intercultural dialogue. On the one hand, we recognise the extraordinary differences that make up the world, and secondly, we believe that shared experiences of struggle allow the creation of a South both diverse and united with a potential of resistance against colonialism, capitalism and patriarchy.

The Summer School will have Portuguese and English as working languages. Simultaneous translation of Portuguese/English and English/Portuguese during the plenary sessions will be ensured by professional translators. We appeal to the shared responsibility of participants who can assist in translation during the workshops. Teachers will always be available to collaborate.

Curia, in the Centro region of Portugal, with a natural park as landscape, is a perfect setting for a quiet and simultaneously intense week of learnings and mutual enrichment.

I.

Abyssal and post-abyssal thinking 

An imaginary line divides the world into the realm of “this side of the line” and the realm “on the other side the line” inhibiting co-presence. The other side, more than irrelevant, is produced as nonexistent. Overcoming abyssal thinking involves transforming absences in emergencies, ecology of knowledges, and intercultural translation. These epistemological instruments will be cornerstones of this Summer School and at the end, should be broadly understood by all.

II.

Transformative Knowledge

The global sharing of experiences, knowledges and projects for social transformation will crucially broaden the discussions and perspectives in a spirit of collective enrichment. The goal is for everyone,  trainers and trainees,  to leave transformed and enriched. The construction of a collective that will not wither by end of the ten days of the school, rather preserving in space and time, continuing its goals, will be highly encouraged. 

III.

Emancipatory Mapping of Social Struggles

Stemming from the challenge of ecology of knowledges, the School intends to build a more emancipatory mapping accommodating languages, stories, knowledges, options,  resistances and struggles typically excluded from the official narratives or classified as inferior and irrelevant. 

Applications run until February 20^th, 2020. 

All those interested in participating in the Summer School must fill in the form below and attach a short cover/motivation letter and a short  CV.

IMPORTANT

1. The cover/motivation letter can be written in English, Portuguese or Spanish and should not exceed 700 words. This letter must state the candidate's path as a student, academic, artist, activist and/or other experience considered relevant, as well as the motivation for this application.

2. The CV should not exceed 2 pages;

3. Applicants will receive a confirmation that the application was received.

4. The course is limited to 40 participants. Applicants will be notified of acceptance or non-acceptance until March 15^th.

4 scholarships covering the full participation in the course (registration fee, accommodation, meals and transportation from Coimbra to Curia and back).

Applications for scholarships should be submitted simultaneously with the application for the course, selecting the option "Scholarship Application", included in the course’s application form.  
In this case, in addition to the short CV (up to two pages) and cover letter (up to 700 words), candidates must attach a letter of justification for the scholarship application, which should be no longer than 500 words.

APPLICATION FORM

Until April 16^th accepted applicants must pay a deposit of 100€. This value, non-refundable in case of withdrawal, will be deducted from the total amount of the fee if registration is completed.

After paying the deposit, participants should proceed to the registration within the prescribed deadlines. There are various types of registration modalities with different fees.
 

REGISTRATION - SUMMER SCHOOL
 

The deadline for full payment of the registration fee is May 3^rd (early-bird fee) and June 1^st (late bird fee).

In case of withdrawal, the registration fee will be refunded when notice of withdrawal is given at least 45 days before the course starts. Any cancellations after May 15^th will not be subject to any refund.  Under no situation will the 100€ deposit be subject to refund.

Notification of acceptance will be accompanied by guidelines for the participant regarding how to proceed with the deposit, the registration and payment of registration fee.

The organising committee will not be responsible for obtaining visas or support funds but may provide assistance. Participants may request documents necessary to travel or obtain funding, including invitation letters.

For any queries relating to these matters, please contact the organising committee at alicesummerschool@ces.uc.pt.

TUITION INCLUDES PARTICIPATION IN SEMINARS; ACCOMMODATION IN DOUBLE ROOMS AT THE HOTEL DAS TERMAS IN CURIA; BREAKFASTS, LUNCHES, DINNERS AND COFFEE BREAKS; READING MATERIALS; AND TRANSFER TO AND FROM COIMBRA - CURIA.
TUITION DOES NOT INCLUDE DOMESTIC OR FOREIGN TRAVEL TO COIMBRA 

CES researchers who organize this summer school and/or collaborate as trainers do not receive any remuneration. Tuition fees only cover summer school costs.

The Summer School will be held at the Hotel das Termas - Curia, Termas, Spa & Golf, located in the village of Curia, in the Centro Region of Portugal, about  2 hours from Lisbon, 1 hour from Porto, 45 minutes from Aveiro and 30 minutes from Coimbra. The organising committee will assure the transport from Coimbra, where the Centre for Social Studies is located, to Curia. The meeting point will be at the Centre for Social Studies on June 24^th, 2019 from 10h00-12h00.

Why Curia?
Curia, near Coimbra, with its natural park as landscape, is a scenario that allows nine days of intense and quiet learning and mutual enrichment. The thermal baths golden age happened between the 1920's and 1950's, after that thermal tourism declined, leading to the closure of services and the progressive decay of many of the existing facilities. The annual presence of the Summer School in Curia is also a way of contributing to a fragile local economy on which many workers depend. The hotel where the Summer School will be installed welcomes many hotel-school interns hotels and guarantees tranquillity and prices that would be impractical in an urban context.

The Summer School is self-funded and non-profit. The registration fee is used to guarantee each participant's accommodation in a shared room at the Hotel das Termas da Curia; breakfasts, snacks, lunches and dinners throughout the course; reading materials and other materials used in workshops; round-trip Coimbra-Curia. Tuition also allows funds for 4 scholarships for participants with no economic conditions, an affirmative action mechanism; as well as the accommodation and honorariums for invited workshop coordinators. It also covers the cost of accommodation and meals for the school's organizers and CES trainers, who receive no honorarium.

ALICE – Strange Mirrors, Unsuspected Lessons: Leading Europe to a new way of sharing the world experiences

The project ALICE seeks to re-think and renovate socio-scientific knowledge in light of the epistemologies of the South, proposed by Boaventura de Sousa Santos. The objective is to develop new theoretical and political paradigms of social transformation.

This research project is coordinated by Boaventura de Sousa Santos and financed by the European Research Council (ERC), one of the most prestigious and highly competitive international financial institutes for scientific excellence in Europe.
 

Why ALICE?

Haunting Europe and the Global North as a whole, there is a sentiment of intellectual and political exhaustion which translates as incapacity to confront innovatively the various challenges of justice that interpellate the world in the first decades of the twenty-first century: social, environmental, inter-generational, cultural, historical and cognitive justice. In contrast, the Global South, in its immense diversity, presents itself today as a wide field of economic, social, cultural, and political innovation. ALICE is grounded on a wager, i.e that social, political and institutional change may largely benefit from the innovations occurring in countries and regions of the Global South. A demanding wager, to be sure, for it presupposes availability for mutual recognition, intercultural understanding, political and ideological convergence, respect for identity, and celebration of diversity. 

The Centre for Social Studies was created within the School of Economics at the University of Coimbra four years after the Revolução dos Cravos (Carnation Revolution) of 25 April 1974, and has been headed by Boaventura de Sousa Santos since its foundation. When it was first created, it was clear that Portugal needed to know more about itself and to learn about Europe, given that it was involved in closer integration. Its interests, however, extended further than this. Once the European nation with the widest contacts outside Europe, Portugal was in a favourable position to serve as a port of transit for Europe and the non-European world. From the outset, some researchers have concentrated on studying Portuguese society and some on European affairs, whilst others have focused on Latin American and African contexts, with Asia also emerging as a field of study at the end of the 1990s.

The CES is, nowadays, an academic institution dedicated to research and advanced training in the social and human sciences. It has an extensive body of researchers working in various areas, including sociologists, economists, jurists, anthropologists, historians, specialists in education, literature, culture and international relations, geographers, architects, engineers and biologists.

In recent years, the scientific work of the CES has expanded significantly. Its body of researchers has grown continuously, the number of research projects has increased, international cooperative networks have been extended, work involving collaboration with outside entities has grown and the main mechanisms for disseminating scientific results are flourishing.

The research projects and international scientific networks in which its researchers have participated over the past decade confirm the dynamism of the Centre for Social Studies, which, in 1997 and in 1999, and more recently in 2005 and 2010, received recognition of its scientific merit when it was evaluated as Excellent (the highest classification) by an international panel, within the framework of the Evaluation Process for Research Units of the Ministry for Science, Technology and Higher Education. In February 2002, the CES was awarded the status of Associate Laboratory by the Ministry of Science on the basis of two central premises: firstly, its proven capacity to develop innovative research into different aspects of Portuguese society as well as into changes currently taking place throughout the world, with an emphasis on semi-peripheral and southern hemisphere societies, particularly in the Portuguese-speaking countries, and, secondly, the Centre’s involvement in matters of public interest, namely public policies and new forms of regulation, relations between academic knowledge and citizen participation, and, finally, the legal system and the reform of the administration of justice.

The University of Coimbra is located in the Centro Region of Portugal, city of Coimbra. With a history dating back to the end of the XIII century, the UC is the oldest university in Portugal and one of the oldest in Europe. On June 22nd, 2013 it was declared a World Heritage site by UNESCO.

This is the sixth edition of the Summer School Epistemologies of the South. The first edition took place in 2014 and was founded on a broader political and intellectual initiative, the project ALICE – Strange Mirrors, Unsuspected Lessons: Leading Europe to a new way of sharing the world experiences.

Seeking to re-think and renovate socio-scientific knowledge in light of the Epistemologies of the South, proposed by Boaventura de Sousa Santos, with the objective of developing new theoretical and political paradigms of social transformation, ALICE ran from 2011 to 2016, was coordinated by Boaventura de Sousa Santos and financed by the European Research Council (ERC), one of the most prestigious and highly competitive international financial institutes for scientific excellence in Europe. 

Please direct all queries to: 

alicesummerschool@ces.uc.pt 

Reach us at the Centre for Social Studies of the University of Coimbra:

+351 239 855570

1. Who can participate?
Applications are open to all those available to participate in a challenging space of mutual learnings towards the decolonisation of thought and struggle against capitalism, colonialism and patriarchy. A heterogeneous group is expected in terms of origin, knowledge, age and experience of work and struggles, composed of academics of different areas, artists and other professionals, students and activists.  Involvement in social movements or other forms of activism or social struggle is highly valued.

2. What are the working languages at the Summer School?
Portuguese and English. Simultaneous translation of Portuguese/English and English/Portuguese during the plenary sessions will be ensured by professional translators. We appeal to the shared responsibility of participants who can assist in translation during the workshops. Teachers will always be available to collaborate.

3. Will I have access to the Summer School’s Reading materials before the beginning of the course?
Yes. You will have access to the materials online a month prior to the beginning of Summer School, at the least.

4. When and where will the Summer School be held?
The Summer School will be held between June 25 to July 3, 2020, at the Hotel das Termas - Curia, Termas, Spa & Golf, Anadia, the village of Curia, about 30 minutes from Coimbra and Aveiro. For detailed information see Where and Important dates. 

5. Where will Summer School participants be accommodated?
Participants will be accommodated in a shared room at the Hotel das Termas - Curia, Termas, Spa & Golf, in Anadia, about 30km from Coimbra, Portugal. The rooms are spacious, with two beds, and absolutely comfortable for two people. If we are expressly requested accommodation in a single room, if there is availability at the hotel, we will make a single room reservation. Please note that in this case you will be charged an extra fee of 375€. For more information see Where.

6. Will I have access to the internet during the Summer School?
Yes. The Hotel das Termas - Curia, Termas, Spa & Golf has wireless network.

7. Will I be entitled to a certificate of participation?
Yes. All participants will receive a certificate of participation.

8. Until when can I apply and what is the deadline for payment?
Applications run until February 20^th, 2020. Up to April 20^th, 2020, accepted candidates must pay a 100€ deposit.  Those who complete full payment of the registration fee by May 3^rd, 2019, will benefit from a reduced rate. The deadline for payment is May 1^st, 2019 (early -bird fee) or June 1^st (late-bird fee with increased costs).

For more information see Application, Registration and Tuition and Important dates.

9. Does the registration fee include accommodation?
Yes. Registration includes participation in the seminars; accommodation in double rooms; breakfasts, lunches, dinners and coffee breaks; reading materials and transportation from Coimbra to Curia. Tuition does not include travel to and from Coimbra. If we are expressly requested accommodation in a single room, if there is availability at the hotel, we will make a single room reservation. Please note that in this case you will be charged an extra fee of 300€. For more information see Application, Registration and Tuition.

10. Does the registration fee include meals?
Yes. Registration includes participation in the Summer School, accommodation in shared double rooms at the hotel, lunches, dinners and coffee breaks, social programme and the course materials. For more information see Application, Registration and Tuition.

11. Will I receive a confirmation when payment is completed?
Yes. You will receive a confirmation the moment you register, including details for making a payment. As soon as you complete the fee payment you will receive a transaction confirmation.

12. Can I request documentation for visa purposes and support funding?
The organising committee will not be responsible for arranging visas nor support funds, however, it may assist in obtaining the necessary documentation for your trip, through the preparation and submission of letters of acceptance and/or certificates. For issues related to these matters, please contact us: alicesummerschool@ces.uc.pt

13. Do I need insurance?
Each participant must have a personal insurance coverage, including medical assistance in the case of emergency. We recommend that you also purchase a travel insurance. Please make sure you bring your insurance policy papers with you.

14. Why is there tuition?

The Summer School is self-funded and non-profit. The registration fee is used to guarantee each participant's accommodation in a shared room at the Hotel das Termas da Curia; breakfasts, snacks, lunches and dinners throughout the course; reading materials and other materials used in workshops; round-trip Coimbra-Curia. Tuition also allows funds for 4 scholarships for participants with no economic conditions, an affirmative action mechanism; as well as the accommodation and honorariums for invited workshop coordinators. It also covers the cost of accommodation and meals for the school's organizers and CES trainers, who receive no honorarium.

15. Why Curia?
Curia, near Coimbra, with its natural park as landscape, is a scenario that allows nine days of intense and quiet learning and mutual enrichment. The thermal baths golden age happened between the 1920's and 1950's, after that thermal tourism declined, leading to the closure of services and the progressive decay of many of the existing facilities. The annual presence of the Summer School in Curia is also a way of contributing to a fragile local economy on which many workers depend. The hotel where the Summer School will be installed welcomes many hotel-school interns hotels and guarantees tranquillity and prices that would be impractical in an urban context.

CONTACT
alicesummerschool@ces.uc.pt 

+351 239855570 (Centro de Estudos Sociais da Universidade de Coimbra)

Gallery Summer School 2018

Gallery Summer School 2017

Gallery Summer School 2016