Cota não é esmola! Existências e resistências negras diante da obrigatoriedade de implementação da política de cotas raciais na pós-graduação da UFAL

Abstract

This thesis aims to analyze how the mandatory racial quota policy implemented in postgraduate programs at Federal University of Alagoas (UFAL) has contributed to disclosing racially biased practices. On that account, racial quotas are understood as a political and epistemic tool that rectifies excluding actions or conceptions based on racial criteria. The implementation of racial quotas was a result of the Affirmative Action Policy (PAA) approved through Resolution no. 86/2018 (CONSUNI/UFAL), an outcome of the Black Movement (Black Institute of Alagoas) inquiries and demands. Diverging from the occidental and hegemonic scientific production, this research is based on three insurgent and Africancentered perspectives: afrocentricity theory (Asante, 2009, 2014, 2016, 2019; Mazama, 2009; nascimento, 2009; Rabaka, 2009), decoloniality or decolonial turn (Ballestrin, 2013; Grosfoguel, 2016; Quijano, 2005, 2009; Mignolo, 2008), and critical whiteness studies (Bento, 2002, 2014, 2022; Cardoso, 2008; Silva, 2017). This study also lies on black and antiracist authors that make use of their scientific production and political behavior to speak out against racial discrimination and explore concepts such as race, raciality, the black identity, the black body, education for ethnic-racial relations, and the debate around the creation and employment of racial quotas at universities: Almeida (2018), Carvalho (2003; 2009), Gomes (2005), Gomes (2003, 2008, 2009, 2012, 2017); Kilomba (2019); Munanga (2001, 2004, 2008, 2012) e Silva (2003). The research was guided by a qualitative case study approach and its timeframe is from 2019 to 2022. Therefore, semi-structured interviews were made with two different groups: the developers of the racial quota policy – the UFAL’s postgraduate quota commission – and the people responsible for its implementation – three professors that, in the firsts years of this affirmative action execution, were part of the student selection commission of the Postgraduate Program in Education (PPGE), the Postgraduate Program in Physics (PPGF), and the Postgraduate Program in Health Sciences (PPGCS). The collected data was analyzed by means of the technique of content analysis as proposed by Bardin (1997). The results have shown that there is an institutional lack of commitment by the university in applying the quota system efficiently which creates an attitude of noncompliance with the Resolution and demands of the black community. In addition, the understandings, impressions and positions assumed by the interviewed participants have revealed the tension around the creation and application of racial quotas face on the hegemonic, white-centered and colonial way of thinking that structures the university and its postgraduate programs.