Team
Introduction
Dr Katucha Bento is a Lecturer in Race and Decolonial Studies, Co-Director of Race.ED Network at the University of Edinburgh, and the co-founder of the Free Afro-Brazilian University (UNAFRO). Her coexistence with quilombos comes from a long journey, since 2003, as an important pilar of references in her formation at personal, spiritual and professional levels. She is part of the Quilombo Anastacia, in Araras (Brazil) from where she received the guidance and commendation to be the Honorary Chaplain in Candomblé at the University of Edinburgh. Her work is inspired in samba and quilombo communities, Black and Queer feminisms and subversive epistemologies and praxis. She has a core belief in ethics of caring, power to the people and the dreamwork for surreal futures. Guide-mother/auntie of Chizara, Jaxon and Chibueze, children of the Black diaspora.
Queer feminist researcher and lecturer mainly interested in gender, antira
cism, decoloniality, migration, sexuality, emotions and intimate relationships. I currently teach Genders & Sexualities as a Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Wollongong, Australia. I worked as a lecturer in Sociology of Emotions/Intimate Relationships at the University of Edinburgh between 2022 and 2023 and I also taught at King’s College and Middlesex University and worked as a researcher at Queen Mary in London. I hold a PhD in Media from the University of West London, a MA in Gender, Sexuality and the Body from the University of Leeds and a BA in Journalism from the Federal University of Santa Maria. In my past life before academia, I focused my energy on story-telling and interviewing folks from all walks of life whilst being employed as a reporter at Globo and Abril in Brazil and as a producer at the BBC in London. I still am a firm believer in the power of stories. I also believe in the power of the body and am an enthusiast of African-centred embodied practices, being committed to Afro dance since 2019 and capoeira since 2023. I come from a family of teachers from Rio Grande do Sul (sometimes employed as such but not always) and I am inspired by those who came before me. As a legacy of sorts I envision education as a radical engineering for emancipation and liberation.
I am a Black woman, daughter of a Black woman teacher of early years of education, Eva Tavares da Silva and Valdivino Honório da Silva, bricklayer. I am mother of Matheus and Claudinéia. I was a teacher in Kindergarten, Elementary School and High School. My experience is in teacher training, including indigenous, quilombola and rural teachers. I have been teaching in Higher Education since 2006 at the Federal University of Sergipe. I am part of the coordination of the Centre of Afro-Brazilian and Indigenous Studies at UFS. My main interests are Education on Ethnic-Racial relations and Indigenous and Quilombola School education. What inspires and motivates my work is the understanding of education as an important tool to fight against oppression and exploitation.
Natural of São Luís, daughter of the breaker of babaçu coconut Enedina Gomes and the carpenter Martiniano Silva. Doctor in Education by the Federal University of Piauí (UFPI). Lecturer at the Department of Education II and the Graduate Programme of Education (PPGE) of the Federal University of Maranhão (UFMA). Raimunda is part of the Research Group RODA GRIÔ-GeAfro: Gender, Education, and Afro descent (UFPI) and of the group Studies and Research: Education, Women and Gender Relations (GEMGe/UFMA). Currently, Raimunda works on her ancestral inspirations of recognising and appreciating our rural and peripheral experiences with community principles. All of that through the coordination of the Centre of Studies and Research about Education of Ethnic-Racial and Gender relations (NEPERGE/UFMA) and the Group of Study and Research about Afrocentric Education (MAfroEduc/UFMA). Her main books are Gender and Race in Epistemic Crossings, Epistemic Voices and Plural Knowledges and Teachers’ Work and Digital Technologies.
Ma. Débora Targino Firmino
I am originally from Joao Pessoa but was raised in Campina Grande, Paraíba. I am the daughter of university lecturers who constantly stimulated me to study, become independent and improve my and the life of those around me for the better. I studied Law and was awarded a scholarship to study affirmative action while at university. Upon concluding my undergraduate degree, I moved to Rio de Janeiro, where I had the unique opportunity to work as a solicitor (OAB/RJ), at the government and in NGOs. I also hold a MA in Mediation and Negotiation (Institut Kurt Bosch, Argentina/Switzerland) following an exciting experience teaching conflict resolution skills to children, adolescents and teachers from public schools in Rio de Janeiro, where my passion for formal education started to grow. I am finishing another MA in Education Policy & Society at King’s College London. Since then, I have advocated for issues involving feminism, gender, education policy, justice, inclusion, and democracy. More specifically, for an education able to raise ethical awareness and to change society into a more just, equal place to live.