AYA LABORATORY

We are AYA – Laboratory of Post-Colonial and Decolonial Studies, linked to the Department of History (DH), the Postgraduate Program in History (PPGH) and the Postgraduate Program in History Teaching (ProfHistória) of the Center for Human Sciences and Education (FAED) from the State University of Santa Catarina (UDESC). Established in July 2016, AYA is a crossroads, a meeting of people from different realities, plural in regionalities, races, genders, classes and sexualities, people from many backgrounds. At our base there is an equity project, practiced daily, which marks our relationships, bringing into everyday life the senses of collectiveness visualized in the many historical realities on which we seek to reflect.

AYA is a dream that another world is possible, as activists and intellectuals linked to post-colonial, decolonial, Afro-diasporic and indigenous studies point out. A dream that is not intended to be a utopia, that is not about a distant future, but about what is done here and now.

With an emphasis on African, Afro-diasporic and indigenous themes, we seek to develop reflections by articulating knowledge from different fields of knowledge, especially social, human and political sciences, from the perspective of transdisciplinarity, interculturality and intersectionality. Based on the inseparability between teaching, research and extension, we seek to bring together teachers, undergraduate and postgraduate students, artivists and activists from social movements and black, African and indigenous collectives in proposing and executing projects and actions developed in the laboratory. This configuration enables knowledge exchange between people located in different geopolitical spaces, places of enunciation and action, enabling the production of plural practices and epistemologies in the construction of knowledge.

Our commitment, therefore, combines theoretical and practical aspirations in the search for breaking down the walls of the university and for its transformation, aiming to erode the racist practices that founded scientific knowledge, the institution of the university and History itself. We seek to highlight and question Eurocentrism, epistemicide and racism that produce death projects for populations that refuse to participate in modern-capitalist plots.

AYA is not intended for appeasement and tranquility, but for a good fight and discomfort in the face of the maintenance of historical and epistemic inequalities and oppressions, because only if we are well articulated can we continue the ongoing work that we have observed historically and that we seek to do. We do not intend to be unprecedented, because many people were already producing questioning knowledge and practices before, and we are grateful to this entire group of people and aware that we are not alone in this fight.