6^th EDITION of the INTERNATIONAL SUMMER SCHOOL "EPISTEMOLOGIES OF THE SOUTH": EXISTING, RESISTING, AND FIGHTING THROUGH THE ARTS

Epistemologies of the South seek to broaden the possibilities of rethinking the world from the knowledges and practices of the Global South. As an epistemological and political proposal, they challenge attempts at epistemic silencing, epistemicide or epistemic subalternisation. The South, in this context, is heterogeneous and includes diverse spaces, varied experiences and an infinity of knowledges.
With this new edition of the School we seek, through the arts, to develop theoretical and methodological approaches that enable critical diagnoses of the present from an ecology of knowledges, having as a constitutive element the possibility of reconstructing, formulating and legitimating alternatives for fairer and freer societies.
Articulating art, science and the knowledges of resistance and struggles, the work will be collective and will bring together researchers from the Epistemologies of the South group, artists and intellectuals committed to Epistemologies of the South, as well as forty participants from various parts of the world and bearers of different knowledges.
As in previous editions, we expect a heterogeneous group in terms of origin, age, work experience and struggle. This summer school will be a space for exchange and co-learning to imagine drawing utopias from concrete experiences and knowledges.

Where, When and How?

• The course will take place on 27, 28, 29 and 30 June, and 04, 05, 06 and 07 July 2022, by e-learning, using the Zoom platform.
• Schedule: 14h00-19h30 (Portugal) || 15h00-20h30 (Spain/France/Italy) || 10h00-15h30 (Brazil) || 15h00-20h30 (Angola) || 15h00-20h30 (Mozambique)
• The total number of hours of the course is 44
• Certificate: of the 44 hours
• 40 students, with 4 scholarships
• The PROGRAMME will be available soon

Organization of the course
The course starts on 27 June with an inaugural lecture, followed by Q&A. Over the following six days two opening presentations will take place, featuring academics and artists. Each presentation will last 20-25 minutes, introducing themes and questions that will stimulate the discussions to be developed in the following workshops among the participants. Each day ends with a moment of debate between the students and the speakers. The use of audio-visual materials is recommended.
The course ends with a collective session (07 July) designed to foster collaborative reflection and the transfer of knowledge among all the participants.

An interdisciplinary programme
Relying on the strong international dimension of the Epistemologies of the South, this Summer School will be still organized on-line, due to COVID-19 restrictions. It will focus on "Existing, Resisting and Struggling through the Arts" and will run from June 27, 28, 29 and 30 through 04, 05, 06 and 07 of July 2022.The major themes, such as ecology of knowledges, colonialism, decolonization, the arts, mediations and supports (institutions, actors, material supports) or translation (transmission, adaptation, appropriation) will be addressed through the presentation of concrete examples.

Who is the course aimed at?
Students, teachers, social movement activists, and general public.

Working languages
The working languages will be Spanish and Portuguese, respecting the various existing versions, contributing to the intercultural transfer of knowledge and situated know-how.

Course objectives
The course is designed as an environment for the work and co-participatory construction of knowledges born from experiences, based on a pro-active and innovative pedagogical methodology. The course will function based on dynamic co-work in reflexive teams during the workshops, where students and lecturers share knowledge and dilemmas about the problems that mark the contemporary world. The horizon of decolonisation of knowledge is a central objective. in this sense, the main objective of this advanced training course is to promote South-South interdisciplinary dialogues to broaden reflection, show and make visible, record, interpret and extend the knowledge that sustains social struggles in our times.
The course is based on four fundamental axes based on the epistemologies of the South:

1. That the understanding of the world far exceeds the European understanding of the world;
2. That there cannot be global social justice without global cognitive justice;
3. There is no lack of alternatives in the world, what is lacking is an alternative thinking of alternatives;
4. The epistemologies of the South claim a diversity of knowledges that sustain social struggles that must be (re)known and valued. Consequently, as an alternative to any general theory, the Epistemologies of the South focus on the promotion of an ecology of knowledges together with intercultural translation.

APPLICATIONS

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.
We understand the course as a space for conviviality, well-being, the sharing of heterogeneous knowledges and mutual learnings among everyone. We recognise the centrality of the production of knowledge beyond the walls of the academy and seek for artistic production to challenge the political imagination.
We acknowledge the extraordinary differences that make up the world and are convinced that shared experiences of struggle allow the constitution of a diverse but united South with potential for resistance against colonialism, capitalism and patriarchy.

All those interested in participating in the Summer School must fill in the APPLICATION TO SUMMER SCHOOL FORM.

IMPORTANT:

• Applicants for this advanced training course must submit a biographical note (up to 300 words) and a motivation letter (up to 700 words) stating why they would like to attend the course, how the subject of the course dialogues with their interests and how it would enrich their knowledge, as well as describing how their participation could contribute to stimulating discussions and enriching the knowledge of the group. Pay attention to the number of words, as the form will only accept the number of words indicated!
• Applicants will receive a confirmation that their application has been received.
• The course is limited to 40 participants. Applicants will be notified of acceptance or non-acceptance by 20 April.
• 4 scholarships will be awarded to cover full participation in the course (tuition).
• Applicants for scholarships should select the "Scholarship Application" option on the form.
• Applications must be submitted [HERE] by midnight of March 31st.

The Summer School is self-funded and does not generate profit. Registration fees grant funding for 4 scholarships for participants.

REGISTRATION AND TUITION

The deadline for full payment of the registration fee is May 16 (early-bird fee) and June 6 (late-bird fee). In case of withdrawal, the registration fee will be refunded when notice of withdrawal is given at least 20 days before the course starts. Any cancellations after June 6 will not be subject to any refund.
Notification of acceptance will be accompanied by guidelines for the participant regarding how to proceed with the registration and payment.

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

ORGANISING COMMITTEE

• Boaventura de Sousa Santos
• Maria Paula Meneses
• Patrícia Branco
• Marisa Ramos Gonçalves
• Fabián Cevallos Vivar
• Iolanda Vasile
• Bryan Vargas Reyes

FAQ

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 Spanish. The working groups call for shared co-responsibility of the participants so that intercultural translation can occur.
 

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 two weeks 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 27 and July 8, 2022, by e-learning through the Zoom platform.
 

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

6. Until when can I apply and what is the deadline for payment?
Applications run until March 31st.  The deadline for payment is May 16th (early-bird fee) or June 6th (late-bird fee with increased costs).
 

7. Will I receive a confirmation when registration and 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.
 

8. Where does tution go to?
Registration fees grant funding for 4 scholarships for participants.

This 6^th edition of the Epistemologies of the South Summer School will focus on the role the Arts play in broadening the north-south/south-south dialogues, and thus in the expansion of political and epistemological imagination, which does not exhaust itself in the denouncement of hegemonic capitalist, colonialist, and hetero-patriarchal thinking. The Covid-19 pandemic brought to light the deepest existing inequalities in the world, which were often ignored or neglected, producing forgetfulness and absences. After almost two years since the appearance of Covid-19, in these difficult and unfortunate times, something has become clear: the Arts have been presented to express our feelings, allowing us today more than ever to speak through them, in a multitude of artistic forms and languages, such as graffiti, (colonial) photography, cinema, literature or knitting.

As Boaventura de Sousa Santos says, we live in a period in which the most disgusting forms of social inequality and discrimination become politically acceptable. Modern contestation ideologies have been largely captured by neoliberalism. There is resistance, but it is becoming less credible as a realistic alternative. This resistance exists now more than ever outside the institutions and not through the modes of political mobilization prevailing in the previous historical period (political parties and social movements).

We believe that the arts, seen as an emancipatory alternative or simply as a way of contesting power and expressing our disagreement, can perfectly dialogue with science and academic knowledge. Hence, the Epistemologies of the South demand a new aesthetic, a plurality of post-abyssal creative artistic practices that emerged from the struggles against capitalism, colonialism, and heteropatriarchy. This being a call to transgress the boundaries between academic knowledge and knowledge born in social struggles, recognizing the role of emotions in the creation of transformative knowledge.

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 real utopias from concrete experiences and knowledges. As the school seeks to explore, Southern aesthetics, in its pluriversity, integrate artistic expressions from numerous cultures and aesthetic theories developed outside the paradigm of Northern epistemologies, offering keys to thinking about and understanding other pasts and new futures.

APPLICATIONS

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.

We understand the course as a space for conviviality, well-being, the sharing of heterogeneous knowledges and mutual learnings among everyone. We recognise the centrality of the production of knowledge beyond the walls of the academy and seek for artistic production to challenge the political imagination.
We acknowledge the extraordinary differences that make up the world and are convinced that shared experiences of struggle allow the constitution of a diverse but united South with potential for resistance against colonialism, capitalism and patriarchy.

All those interested in participating in the Summer School must FILL IN THE APPLICATION FORM.

IMPORTANT:

• Applicants for this advanced training course must submit a biographical note (up to 300 words) and a motivation letter (up to 700 words) stating why they would like to attend the course, how the subject of the course dialogues with their interests and how it would enrich their knowledge, as well as describing how their participation could contribute to stimulating discussions and enriching the knowledge of the group. Pay attention to the number of words, as the form will only accept the number of words indicated!
• Applicants will receive a confirmation that their application has been received.
• The course is limited to 40 participants. Applicants will be notified of acceptance or non-acceptance by April 30^th.
• 4 scholarships will be awarded to cover full participation in the course (tuition).
• Applicants for scholarships should select the "Scholarship Application" option on the form.

Applications must be submitted [HERE] by midnight of April 28^th.

The Summer School is self-funded and does not generate profit. Registration fees grant funding for  4 scholarships for participants.

REGISTRATION AND TUITION

The deadline for full payment of the registration fee is May 16 (early-bird fee) and June 6 (late-bird fee). In case of withdrawal, the registration fee will be refunded when notice of withdrawal is given at least 20 days before the course starts. Any cancellations after June 6 will not be subject to any refund.  

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

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

• Boaventura de Sousa Santos
• Maria Paula Meneses
• Patrícia Branco
• Marisa Ramos Gonçalves
• Fabián Cevallos Vivar
• Iolanda Vasile
• Livia C. Almendary
• Bryan Vargas Reyes

Sofia da Palma Rodrigues is the editor of Divergente, a digital magazine of narrative journalism. She holds a PhD in Post-Colonialism and Global Citizenship from the University of Coimbra and is part of Bagabaga Studios, a cooperative of multimedia creation, where she participated in the direction, production and script writing of several projects that cross the worlds of journalism, cinema and academia. In recent years, Sofia da Palma Rodrigues has studied the micronarratives that recount the experiences and affections experienced by the African Commandos in Guinea who fought alongside the Portuguese Army during the Colonial War, and the impacts of silencing these voices on the decolonization that Portugal has yet to accomplish.

Renan Inquérito is Brazilian, RAPist and SARAUzist, PhD in Geography and visiting professor at UFABC (Universidade Estadual do ABC). He started his career as a teacher in rural settlements, and later on taught in elementary and high schools, as well as in colleges. Artistically, he has been active in hip-hop culture since 1997, when he founded the rap group Inquérito, with which he recorded nine albums, dozens of songs, music videos, and hundreds of concerts. His academic production does not abandon his life experience, as can be seen in his Master's Dissertation Território Usado: Cada Canto um Rap, Cada Rap um Canto (Used Territory: Every Corner a Rap, Every Rap a Corner) defended at UNICAMP in 2010. His Doctoral thesis is O Relevo da Voz: Um Grito Cartográfico dos Saraus em São Paulo (The Relief of the Voice: A Cartographic Scream of the Saraus in São Paulo), defended at UNESP in 2019. With the Portuguese sociologist Boaventura de Sousa Santos he wrote the script for the show Opera Rap Global (2013) and participated in the book In the Workshop of the Artisan Sociologist (2019)..

Viviana Checchia is a curator and researcher active internationally. She is currently  Residency Curator at Delfina Foundation, London. Previous to this role she was Senior Lecturer in Fine Art at HDK-Valand, Gothenburg and before that, Public Engagement Curator at the Centre for Contemporary Arts: Glasgow. Checchia has also produced and contributed to a range of international projects, including the Young Artist of the Year Award 2014 in Ramallah and the 4th Athens Biennale. For the past eleven years, she has co-directed ‘vessel’, a curatorial platform based in Puglia, Italy. In 2013, Checchia was a recipient of the ICI/DEDALUS Research Award for research carried out in the United States into socially engaged practices, and in 2016 she was awarded the Igor Zabel Award for Culture and Theory Laureate’s Choice for her contributions to the understanding and international profiling of Eastern European art.

Inês Nascimento Rodrigues is a researcher at the Centre for Social Studies of the University of Coimbra in the research line "Europe and the Global South: heritage and dialogues". She is a member of the coordination team of the CES Trauma Observatory. Currently, she is developing her research in the scope of the project "CROME - Crossed Memories, Politics of Silence: the colonial and liberation wars in post-colonial times", coordinated by Miguel Cardina and financed by the European Research Council. Inês Nascimento Rodrigues holds a PhD in Postcolonialism and Global Citizenship from CES/FEUC, having elaborated a study on the "Batepá Massacre", in São Tomé and Príncipe, which won the 11th edition of the CES Award for Young Social Scientists of Portuguese Language. Her current research interests focus on memory and cultural studies, post-colonial theories and debates on the representation and commemoration of colonial and liberation wars.
 

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.

ALICE was active between 2011 and 2016 and is a legacy of the Reinventing Social Emancipation project (EMANCIPA) coordinated by Boaventura de Sousa Santos from 1999 to 2001.Both projects were conducted at the Centre for Social Studies of the University of Coimbra in partnership with a range of international researchers and research centres.  In 2017, the ALICE project became the alice-Epistemologies of the South Research Programme, which is also based CES, although it relys on the collaboration of many other people. The Alice Project page remains as an archive. 

Summer School Epistemologies of the South I - 2014

Summer School Epistemologies of the South II - 2016

Summer School Epistemologies of the South III - 2017

Summer School Epistemologies of the South IV - 2018

Summer School Epistemologies of the South V - 2019

Please direct all queries to:
alicesummerschool@ces.uc.pt
 

Reach us at the Centre for Social Studies of the University of Coimbra:
+351.239855570

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 Spanish. The working groups call for shared co-responsibility of the participants so that intercultural translation can occur.

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 two weeks 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 27 and July 8, 2022, by e-learning through the Zoom platform.

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

6. Until when can I apply and what is the deadline for payment?
Applications run until March 31st.  The deadline for payment is May 16th (early-bird fee) or June 6th (late-bird fee with increased costs).

7. Will I receive a confirmation when registration and 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.

8. Where does tution go to?
Registration fees grant funding for 4 scholarships for participants.