Banca de QUALIFICAÇÃO: BEATRIZ TEIXEIRA DE SOUZA

BLACK PATHS: intersection of race, gender and class in the Postgraduate Program

Keywords: Black Women; Black Feminism; Corporeality; Educational Trajectories; Postgraduate Studies.

This paper aims to reflect on the presence of black women in the Geography Postgraduate Program. Through my own narrative and the narratives of other women, I aim to understand the issues that permeate our bodies and identities.  The situation of black women in society, especially in Brazil, is crossed by the results of historical processes and cannot be discussed without analyzing the intersectional category. We use intersectionality as an analytical and methodological tool for crossing oppressions suffered by vulnerable groups. With this, I seek to investigate how the intersections of race, gender and class play out in the life and educational trajectory of black women. The school/academic space is impacted by racism and sexism, which cause erasure, under-representation and under-valuation, contributing to delegitimizing localized knowledge and black experiences. Therefore, the main objective of this work is to analyze the life and educational trajectory of black women in the Graduate Program in Geography (PPGGEO) at the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro. This objective is followed by specific objectives which include: a) Locating the presence of black women on the UFRRJ Geography Postgraduate course. b) Presenting a contextualization of the intersectionality of race, gender and class, situating these elements as fundamental to understanding the experience of black women in this academic environment. C) Analyze the life narratives of these women entering the Master's course in Geography, with an emphasis on their educational trajectories, in order to highlight the possible influences, or not, of the intersections of race, gender and class in the educational environment. In this way, the resistance and emancipation that accompany the reflections of black feminism will underpin the analysis and methodology of this study. We will use the methodological approaches of Black Autoethnography and From Within, breaking with univocal, crystallized methodologies that neglect black subjectivities and voices. The expected result is to highlight and reflect on the multiple forms of discrimination that surround the space of black women in society, especially in the educational sphere.