Antonádia Borges

Professor Antonádia Borges teaches at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. Previously, she was a professor of anthropology at the University of Brasilia, El Colegio de Mexico and the National Museum in Rio de Janeiro. Currently, she is a visiting professor at HUMA – Institute for Humanities in Africa. Her research problematises how different human experiences imply distinct temporalities and expectations about the meaning and purpose of life. This includes ethnographic research on people fighting for land and housing, and aspiring to be free to designate, in their terms (and not through ideas of the oppressor) the purpose of the places where their ancestors and future generations will dwell.  Her most recent research is on the role of the university in Brazil and South Africa, respectively. It looks at how, given their histories of racial oppression, these countries see the university as important in giving them prominence in the global academic world. This project is a comparative analysis of the colonialist discourses of whiteness that still persist in the academy. Professor Borges suggests that in Global South countries, the university resembles a plantation focused on the production of monocultures and labour regimes similar to slavery. This cognitive plantation is, however, transformed by subjects who dare to challenge it with other temporalities and notions of sovereignty. Professor Borges has previously had visiting professorships at several universities in South Africa, Argentina and India.