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    The Foreign Student Guide is a comprehensive tool that aims to facilitate the transition and integration of these students into the UFBA academic community.
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  2. Research Groups

Research Groups

### **Africa: History and Identities – Luis Nicolau Parés (Leader)**
 
 
The construction of an identity involves knowing one’s own history—not to idealize it, but to make it a present cultural reference. Brazil is the second-largest country in terms of Black or Afro-descendant populations in the world, a reality that is particularly evident in Bahia, and especially in Salvador. Despite this, the lingering legacy of a slave-holding mentality and the hegemonic promotion of European-origin culture seem intent on erasing Africa, whose histories, cultures, and peoples are often reduced to a false, monolithic entity. Africa appears and disappears as a topic of study, not as a holder of its own historicity, but as an appendix to the history of European expansion and, by extension, to the transatlantic slave trade. Once this chapter ends, Africa mysteriously vanishes. We are left with the impression that it ceased to have a history, to exist. This Research Group aims to strengthen an academic space dedicated to the study of African history.
**Research Lines:** African Studies.
 
 
 
### **Encruzilhada de Saberes: Culture, Body, Health, and Ecology – Fátima Tavares (Leader); Carlos Caroso, Cecilia McCallum, Lucrecia Greco**
 
 
Formed in 1997, the group conducts research at the intersection of culture (human action), body (biologically or socially determined dispositions), and environment (systemic and participatory dynamics connected to cultural and/or biological approaches). In this crossroad of fields, it becomes essential to consider the contexts and intertexts evoked by these domains (understood here as action, performance, strategy, interaction, etc.).
**Research Lines:** Body and Ethnology; Care and Therapeutic Agencies; Public Space, Religions, Sociabilities; Narratives and Interpretation; Traditional Knowledge, Practices and Ethnosciences.
 
 
 
### **Slavery and the Invention of Freedom – Luis Nicolau Parés**
 
 
The "Slavery and the Invention of Freedom" research group has held biweekly meetings since 1997, and periodically organizes lectures, seminars, colloquia, and other events. Since its inception, the group has included faculty and students from the UFBA Graduate Program, as well as researchers from other institutions in Bahia and elsewhere, all interested in the historical perspective on Afro-Brazilian issues.
**Research Lines:** Culture and Society; Slavery and the Invention of Freedom.
 
 
 
### **EtniCidades: Ethnic-Racial Studies Group in Architecture and Urbanism – Vilson Caetano Sousa Junior**
 
 
The EtniCidades group emerged from a UFBA Community and Society Curricular Activity (ACCS) in 2013 titled *Architectures of Traditional Peoples and Communities: Architectures of the Quilombo Salamina Putumuju*, which addressed spatial understanding and architectural proposals for the Salamina quilombola community in Bahia’s Recôncavo. It also built on a 2014 extension course on Afro-Brazilian Architectures at FAUFBA. The group aims to develop extensions and research on architectures built by ethnic groups and traditional communities.
**Research Lines:** Afro-Brazilian Architectures; African Cities: Architecture and Urbanism in Africa; African Diaspora in the Black Atlantic: Afro-Diasporic Cities and Architectures in the Americas; Racism and the City: Ethnic-Racial Segregation, Institutional Violence and Urban Resistance; Ethnic-Racial Relations in Architecture, Urbanism and the City.
 
 
 
### **Gir@: Feminist Studies Group on Politics and Education – Felipe Fernandes (Leader)**
 
 
This group focuses on feminist studies in politics and education, especially on the intersections of gender with labor, education, activism, and social struggles. Since 2014, the group has conducted studies on gender, politics, and education, including research on migrant women and the sociologist Zahidé Machado Neto (1931–1983). It also runs outreach projects in suburban schools and operates a web radio station. It co-edits the journal *Cadernos de Gênero e Diversidade* with FEMPOS/UNILAB.
**Research Lines:** Feminist Anthropology and Queer Studies; Education for Equality and Knowledge Production; Social Movements and Struggles in Contexts of Change.
**Networks:** Chaire de Recherche sur l’Homophobie; LIESS; Instituto de Estudos de Gênero; Universidade Nômade Brasil.
 
 
 
### **ETNOLINSI – Research Group on Ethnology, Linguistics, and Indigenous Health – Danilo Ramos (Leader)**
 
 
ETNOLINSI affirms a transdisciplinary and cosmopolitical perspective for collective reflection and action aimed at intercultural communication and health, the realization of social rights, and Indigenous autonomy and protagonism.
**Research Lines:** Ethnology and Indigenous Peoples of the Americas; Anthropology of Indigenous Health; Ethnolinguistics; Decolonial Critical Thought; Amerindian Cosmopolitics.
 
 
 
### **Interdisciplinary Group on Psychoactive Substances – GIESP – Edward MacRae (Leader)**
 
 
GIESP includes researchers and students from the humanities and health sciences, with the goal of exploring the diverse issues surrounding the use of psychoactive substances. It emphasizes socio-anthropological approaches to understanding how individuals and groups make sense of their substance use.
**Research Lines:** Society, Culture, Health and Education; Drug Addiction and Urban Health.
 
 
 
### **MITO – Memory, Identity Processes, and Territorialities in Bahia’s Recôncavo – Ana Paula Comin de Carvalho**
 
 
MITO gathers faculty and students from Social Sciences, History, and Museology at UFRB, focusing on the sociocultural and political realities of the Recôncavo region through the lenses of memory, identity, and territory.
 
 
 
### **Digital Museum of African and Afro-Brazilian Memory – Livio Sansone (Leader)**
 
 
Launched in 1998, the Digital Museum (MD) began as a collection of clippings and pamphlets on the Black movement, racism, and Africa in Brazilian media. It aims to become a broad, interactive network with contributions from over 430 researchers. It partners with the Brazilian National Library (FBN), which will serve as the repository for high-resolution digital copies of its documents.
**Support:** Prince Claus Foundation, CNPq, CAPES, FINEP, FAPESB.
**Partners:** ABA, National Archives, and others.
 
 
 
### **SAVIS – Interdisciplinary Study Center on Health, Violence, and Subjectivity – Milton Julio de Carvalho Filho (Leader)**
 
 
SAVIS produces interdisciplinary knowledge through research and outreach focusing on health, violence, and subjectivity.
**Research Lines:** Knowledge and Practices in Health; Subjectivity, Institutions and Health in Contemporary Times; Violence and Health in Cities.
 
 
 
### **ObservaBaía – Observatory on Socio-Environmental Vulnerabilities in the Bay of All Saints – Carlos Caroso (Leader), Fátima Tavares**
 
 
A research and intervention program studying the lives of traditional communities around the Bay of All Saints (BTS), focusing on environmental and social vulnerabilities, cultural heritage, and the impacts of major development projects.
**Research Lines:** Cultural Heritage; Underwater Cultural Heritage; Religions and Care Networks; Socio-environmental Vulnerabilities.
 
 
 
### **Observamus – Observatory of Museums and Cultural Heritage – Livio Sansone**
 
 
An interdisciplinary and inter-institutional space for research and dialogue on musealization, heritage management, and cultural policy. Activities include forums, conferences, courses, exhibitions, and publications.
**Research Lines:** Design Anthropology / Co-creation in Digital Innovation; Heritage Management and Cultural Rights; History of Anthropology; Social Memory and Heritage Education; Digital Museums; Museums, Objects, and Collections; Curatorial Processes; Globalization and Heritage in Transnational Contexts.
 
 
 
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