A city-university field in Northeastern Brazil: UNILAB’s case

Abstract

This paper initially presents and operates an analytical framework that allows us to critically analyze daily situations experienced in a university, not only formal or academic, stricto sensu situations. This framework is composed by the idea of the city-university field, social provisions, disturbances and problematic situations, the daily life and the experiences, the subfields and incumbents/insurgents. This analytical framework is constituted based on a public federal university, which has been deurbanized and internationalized and is located in small cities in the countryside of Northeastern Brazil. This university is deeply characterized by social diversity, including hundreds of students from African countries. Data was gathered, built, systematized and analyzed based on daily life immersion in the field, focusing on the impacts of implementation of the university in small cities, specially considering the challenges faced by students. Among the methodological resources used, it is important to point out the participant observation, documental analysis, questionnaires, statements and interviews. We conclude that the city-university field aggregates different agents, with subfields, incumbents/insurgents, cognitive schemes and shared meanings, as well as singular ways different agents deal with problematic situations. Besides, we evidence a conflictual centrality in the daily life dynamics, the presence of two cycles between 2011 and 2019 and the existence of persistent tensions between hegemonies and subalternities that are recreated. We understand, this, that this paper positively affects the studies and analyses on higher education and, more specifically, on universities in Brazil.

Keywords:
university; youths; internationalization; Higher Education; city

Resumo

Este artigo apresenta e opera preliminarmente um arcabouço analítico que fundamenta uma análise crítica das situações cotidianas vivenciadas em uma universidade, situações não somente formais ou acadêmicas, stricto sensu. Compõem esse arcabouço a ideia do campo universitário-urbano, as disposições sociais, os distúrbios e as situações problemáticas, o cotidiano e as experiências, os subcampos e polos. Esse arcabouço analítico está sendo constituído a partir de uma universidade federal pública, interiorizada e internacionalizada, sediada em pequenas cidades interioranas no nordeste do Brasil. Uma universidade profundamente marcada pela diversidade social, inclusos centenas de estudantes que são originários de países africanos. Os dados foram coletados, construídos, sistematizados e analisados a partir da imersão cotidiana no campo, com foco nos impactos da implantação da universidade em pequenas cidades, considerando particularmente os desafios enfrentados pelos discentes. Dentre os recursos metodológicos utilizados, cabe indicar a observação participante, a análise documental, questionários, depoimentos e entrevistas. Conclui-se que o campo universitário-urbano agrega agentes variados, com subcampos, polos esquemas cognitivos e sentidos partilhados, bem como formas singulares dos diferentes agentes lidarem com as situações problemáticas. Além disso, evidencia-se uma centralidade conflitual na dinâmica cotidiana, a presença de dois ciclos entre 2011 e 2019 e a existência de tensões persistentes entre hegemonias e subalternidades que se recriam. Entende-se, assim, que o artigo impacta positivamente os estudos e as análises sobre a educação superior, e, particularmente, sobre as universidades no Brasil.

Palavras-chave:
universidade; juventudes; internacionalização; educação superior; urbano

Resumen

Este artículo presenta y opera preliminarmente un marco analítico que fundamenta un análisis crítico de situaciones cotidianas vividas en una universidad, situaciones que no son sólo formales o académicas, stricto sensu. Este entramado comprende la idea de campo universitario-urbano, disposiciones sociales, perturbaciones y situaciones problemáticas, cotidianidad y vivencias, subcampos y polos. Este marco analítico se está constituyendo a partir de una universidad pública federal, interiorizada e internacionalizada, con sede en pequeñas ciudades del interior del nordeste de Brasil. Una universidad profundamente marcada por la diversidad social, que incluye a cientos de estudiantes que provienen de países africanos. Los datos fueron recolectados, construidos, sistematizados y analizados a partir de la inmersión diaria en el campo, enfocándose en los impactos de la implementación de la universidad en las pequeñas localidades, particularmente considerando los desafíos que enfrentan los estudiantes. Entre los recursos metodológicos utilizados, cabe mencionar la observación participante, el análisis de documentos, cuestionarios, testimonios y entrevistas. Se concluye que el campo universitario-urbano agrega agentes variados, con subcampos, polos de esquemas cognitivos y significados compartidos, así como formas únicas para que los diferentes agentes aborden situaciones problemáticas. Además, se evidencia una centralidad conflictual en las dinámicas cotidianas, la presencia de dos ciclos entre 2011 y 2019 y la existencia de tensiones persistentes entre hegemonías y subalternidades que se recrean. Se entiende, por lo tanto, que el artículo tiene un impacto positivo en los estudios y análisis sobre la educación superior, y particularmente sobre las universidades en Brasil.

Palavras clave:
universidad; jóvenes; internacionalización; educación universitária; urbano

1 Introduction

Between 2003 and 2016, there was an expansion of institutions, campi, courses and vacancies offered in higher education in Brazil, with emphasis on the expansion of universities and federal institutes of education, science and technology. From this expansion, the country arrives in 2019 with 63 public federal universities in activity and 6 in implementation. In this sense, Lima et al. (2021, p. 20) point out:

The resurgence of public and free higher education in the country occurred predominantly during the governments of presidents Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (2003-2010) and Dilma Rousseff (2011-2016). Convinced that elitist access to university institutions is one of the forms of social exclusion, both governments mobilize to create the right conditions for 30% of young people aged between 18 and 24 to attend higher education, a target set out in the National Plan for Education (BRASIL, 2001).

This expansion of higher education increased the number of black and brown undergraduate students in universities, increasing their presence from 160,527 in 2003 to 613,826 in 2018 (ANDIFES, 2019), with undergraduate students blacks – blacks and browns – and indigenous people making up 61.1% of the total, as indicated by the Census of Students of Federal Universities. There was also an increase in students from low-income families. Since 2003, 42.8% of students belonged to families that had an income of up to 1.5 minimum wages per capita; in 2018, this contingent reached 70.2 % of the total (ANDIFES, 2019). Also in 2003, 37.5% of students had attended high school exclusively in public schools, while in 2018 this percentage included 60.4% (ANDIFES, 2019). The female presence in universities also increased, with the percentage of women reaching 54.6% in 2018 (ANDIFES, 2019).

In this context, of the 63 universities implemented in Brazil, two have an international character, both created in 2010. The University of International Integration of Afro-Brazilian Lusofonia (UNILAB), which focuses on international cooperation with the African countries of the Community of African Portuguese Language (CPLP), and the Federal University of Latin American Integration (UNILA), focused on Latin America, particularly MERCOSUR countries (UNILA, 2020).

Located in Ceará, in two small towns, Redenção and Acarape, approximately 60 km from the state capital, Fortaleza, UNILAB (2020, emphasis in the original) is dedicated “to international cooperation and committed to interculturality, citizenship, and democracy in societies”, emphasizing the “academic and solidary exchange with Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Portugal, São Tomé and Príncipe and Timor-Leste”. Fortaleza, with an estimated population of 2.7 million people (IBGE, 2019), is one of the most populous cities in the country. UNILAB also has a campus in Bahia, in São Francisco do Conde. Its creation, expanding access to higher education, was part of the priority given by the Lula and Dilma governments to Brazil-Africa relations, in the context of solidary south-south cooperation (SPELLER, 2021), and to policies to promote racial equality in Brazil, considering the struggles and agendas of a varied set of social agents, including the black movement (GALA, 2021).

At UNILAB, the presence of popular segments, women, blacks and indigenous peoples is even more pronounced, making it possible to speak of a university marked by historical pluralism and inter-historicity (SEGATO, 2012). Just to illustrate, 82.8% of on-campus undergraduate students in Ceará declare themselves black – black and brown – and indigenous (UNILAB, 2019). In 2019, there are, at UNILAB in Ceará, 3894 on-site undergraduate students (UNILAB, 2019), with 3016 Brazilians, including 125 indigenous people or quilombolas, 12 Timorese, and 866 Africans – with 223 Angolans, 53 Cape Verdeans, 507 Guineans, 35 Mozambicans and 48 are from Tome (UNILAB, 2019).

To understand the intensity of the presence of African students – from the countries mentioned above – and Timorese at UNILAB, it should be noted that, between 2011 and the first half of 2019, when the Student Agreement Program – Graduation (PEC-G)¹ selected 1632 students across the country, UNILAB received 2124 students (MINISTRY OF FOREIGN RELATIONS, 2019; UNILAB, 2019). Therefore, UNILAB welcomed, considering the entry of these nationalities through the PEC-G, more foreign students than all other Brazilian universities combined. It is not by chance that Timbane (2020, p. 33, our translation) points out:

UNILAB is a rich institution from the point of view of culture, languages, and versatile pedagogical practices, as teachers adapt (at all times) their methodologies to serve students from different cultures, with different initial training and different languages.

In this context, our extension and research group has been developing extension and research actions since 2015, focusing on the analysis of the urban impacts of the implementation of UNILAB in both cities and on how students experience academic and urban daily life.

From these actions, and considering that we are professors/graduates of the institution, Brazilians and Guineans, we have experienced the university-urban routine with great intensity in recent years, perceiving its density and complexity. Gradually, our work required the incorporation of theoretical and methodological references and the collection/production, systematization, and analysis of empirical data.

More directly, we need to constitute and incorporate categories, strategies, and methodologies for action and investigation. Thus, this article presents theoretical-empirical vectors that form an analytical framework under construction, which – it is intended – will underlie the deepening and development of interventions, investigations, and analyses. Thus, we systematize and present reflections and theoretical-empirical constructions that can support the Group's performance, considering and articulating multiple scales – nano, micro, meso, macro – that cross and constitute the university and the urban environment.

By sharing analytical findings and recording memories of everyday life, we seek to foster a deeper understanding of a dense and complex institution such as an internalized and internationalized university. In this sense, we understand that the findings and theoretical-empirical issues presented here can generate insights and substantiate/instigate analyses in which everyday situations and experiences on a micro and nanoscale acquire analytical relevance, without neglecting trans-scalar articulations, including being applied in other objects of investigation.

The article is based on secondary and primary data, articulating methodologies that integrate an ethnographic bias influenced by social cartography, as well as the analysis of documents and the implementation of conversation circles, exchanges, questionnaires, interviews, and sketches. It should be noted, however, that, although it presents data collected in campus diaries and, in general, arising from the author's own immersion in the campus, this article is not about accentuating the ethnographic bias, in which the dense description of concrete situations and a multiplicity of speeches would compose the narrative developed here².

The work is structured, in addition to the Introduction and Final Considerations, into four topics. The first theoretically and empirically discusses the university-urban campus and sub-campus; the second adds a neopragmatism bias to the cognitive schemes and shared meanings, articulating the categories of disturbance and problematic situations, in addition to presenting everyday life and experience; the third highlights the centrality of the conflictual dimension in the daily dynamics in the campus; and the fourth highlights two cycles identified in the campus, discussing their characteristics and implications.

2 A unique university-urban campus

Gradually, we were building the understanding that the University and the two cities make up an urban-university campus, where various social agents coexist and interact, occupying positions, mobilizing resources, exercising power and recreating – structurally and dispositionally – the campus itself. It is a relatively autonomous social universe, structurally delimited by a set of distinct and coexisting positions. It is a relatively autonomous social universe, structurally delimited by a set of distinct and coexisting positions (BOURDIEU, 2004). Thus, the campus is constituted as structures are instituted and reproduced, which circumscribe positions and aggregate capital, with emphasis on institutional/bureaucratic-administrative structures, but also informal structures, particularly those linked to what we will characterize, as a little to the front, such as sub-campus and poles.

When entering – and remaining – on the campus, each agent (individual, collective, and/or institutional) establishes/occupies positions that allow access and operation of existing/mobilized capitals – economic, political, social, cultural, intellectual, aesthetic, ethical, technical, symbolic (BOURDIEU, 1996, 2004). The capitals evidence current or potential resources and the positions delimit the access to these capitals, considering, in some cases, exclusivities, privileges, and monopolies in the exercise of power and in the formation of decisions (BOURDIEU, 2007). Thus, the campus reveals, in different cycles and conjunctures, a specific – and unequal – distribution of instruments and means for the exercise of power, evidencing the objectivity of a hierarchical place, where a varied set of agents gathers and interacts (BOURDIEU, 1996, 2004; ORTIZ, 2003). More than that, acting on the campus involves the recursive and motivational application of continuously mobilized stocks of knowledge and skills (PETERS, 2006). In this sense, configuring practical senses (BOURDIEU, 1996), the dispositions impel and enable each agent, from their trajectory, to interact and define the best posture and choice in each situation, making them able and inclined to carry out certain transactions, allowing him to face everyday situations – considering the existing tensions, interpellations, conditioning and interdependencies (MACHADO, 2015, 2017; MACHADO et al., 2017).

In this way, socially constituted structures and dispositions condition and mediate the daily practices carried out by agents (BOURDIEU, 1996), and it is worth mentioning the situated and interdependent character of social actions (ELIAS, 2001), with each agent being questioned and tensioned by relationships, different agents and forces. In this context, unique interests, expectations, and motivations are constituted, and therefore, being situated on a campus refers to feeling/producing forces and/or effects (BOURDIEU, 2007), with everyday actions inscribing themselves in procedures with a certain degree of sequentiality and cumulativeness, marked by entanglements and mutualities. From this perspective, procedures reveal dynamics of individuation, inscribed in a “configuration of elements, forces or lines that act simultaneously” (KASTRUP; BARROS, 2015, p. 77), but also marked by a “becoming in constant movement”, guarding, therefore, “the power of movement” (KASTRUP; BARROS, 2015, p. 77).

From this perspective, UNILAB seems to be constituted, in Ceará, associated with the cities of Redenção and Acarape, as a social space – an urban university campus – where a varied set of social agents coexist, evidencing struggles, reasons, and passions that intensify, as well as overlapping and tensioning interests, expectations and motivations (BOURDIEU, 1996).

However, how to analyze this experiential daily life on campus? More than that, in a way that does not imply assuming a deterministic perspective regarding the constraints that make up the campus? Through the understanding that tensions, contradictions, and paradoxes allow/require a remaking and, more than that, discontinuities, changes, ruptures, and lines of flight.

In order to delve into the daily life of the campus, including an understanding that there are structures that go beyond the campus itself, we mobilize the evidentiary paradigm (GINZBURG, 1989) associated with the sociology of daily life (PAIS, 1993) and a long-term geo-history, interweaving the everyday practices to long-lasting urban “fine weaves of structures” (BRAUDEL, 1965; PAIS, 2005). It should be noted that, when we refer to the evidence, we are mobilizing an “interpretive method centered on the residuals, on the marginal data, considered revealing”, or, in other words, the “details normally considered unimportant, or even trivial,' low'” (GINZBURG, 1989, p. 149-150). In this sense, the analytical focus on “banal scenes of everyday life” allows “insinuating the social, through suggestive allusions or insinuations” (GINZBURG, 1989, p. 143), instigating the conversion of “everyday life into a permanent surprise” (PAIS, 1993, p. 106), denaturalizing and problematizing what seems normal, absolutely stable, coherent, orderly and transparent.

In addition to these theoretical-empirical articulations, it is worth pointing out references associated with migrants, diasporas, and the urban environment, which reinforce the understanding of the intensity, density, and complexity of the campus.

2.1 Temporary Migrants and Diasporas

The intensity, density, and complexity of the campus are associated with the fact that UNILAB is a university marked by the presence of students who are temporary migrants, in a context of internalization and international cooperation in higher education (SUBUHANA, 2005, 2007; GUSMÃO, 2012; HELENO, 2014; BARROS, 2015; RIBEIRO, 2015; MENEGHEL; AMARAL, 2016).

When referring to temporary migrants, we are referring to students from (1) various districts, locations, sites, and urban centers of the Maciço de Baturité Region, comprising 13 municipalities, including Redenção and Acarape (See Figure 1); (2) from other regions and municipalities in Ceará, particularly from the Greater Fortaleza Region (See Figure 1), and also from other states in the country, coming from rural areas, small and medium-sized cities, and metropolises; (3) from other countries, particularly East Timor and the African countries of the CPLP – Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea Bissau, Mozambique, and São Tomé and Príncipe.

Figure 1
Location of the Municipalities of Redenção and Acarape in the Northeast, in Ceará, and in the Maciço de Baturité Region

Student experiences are part of mobilities and flows and are crossed by subalternity associated with coloniality and the country's peripheral insertion into global capitalism. This condition inscribes these students as diasporas, formed by networks, flows, and circuits. Here it is worth highlighting, as indicated by Silva and Morais (2012, p. 174), that “the diaspora appears as a concept precisely to reinforce the idea of multilocality because it does not presuppose a subject linked only to a specific geopolitical limit”. This element reinforces the idea that the experiences lived by students in the university-urban campus are crossed by multiple scales.

Considering temporary migration, there is a wide student diversity, with identity cleavages involving social class, nationality, race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, religiosity, political ideology, language, and culture. In this context, the “moments or processes that are produced in the articulation of cultural differences” (MIGLIEVICH-RIBEIRO; PRAZERES, 2015, p. 20) gain relevance, highlighting the “between-places” (BHABHA, 2013, apud MIGLIEVICH-RIBEIRO; PRAZERES, 2015, p. 38) and “hybridisms” as significant categories (BHABHA, 2013, apud MIGLIEVICH-RIBEIRO; PRAZERES, 2015, p. 40). It is no coincidence, therefore, that what Simas (2019) highlights as the diaspora is a place of suffering and tragedy, evidencing weaknesses, sensitivities, distances, uprooting, and losses, but it is also a place of invention, renewal, recreation, considering that it is a place of transit, of movement, of passage, of multiple crossroads.

2.2 An Expanded and Intensified Urban

The university spreads out, in Ceará, through the two small towns – Redenção and Acarape –, with the student presence inscribing itself in a complex urban daily life and vice versa, with the cities taking root and composing the academic spaces. Redenção and Acarape are virtually conurbable cities. Their reduced urban spots allow for displacements through walks, which are essential to the cities, with daily face-to-face coexistence involving academic agents, particularly thousands of students and residents who already reside there.

The academic-scientific character internalized, internationalized, and associated with temporary migration and diasporas have an intense impact on the urban³, implying the constitution of a paradoxical urban, marked, at the same time, by slow rhythms, a priori, considering that these are small interior towns, and fast, intense and trans scalar rhythms, due to the incorporation of other agents, procedures, structures, flows and networks. It reveals, therefore, an urban space marked by the proximity and slow pace of the interior and the countryside, and, at the same time, characterized by the intensity, speed, multiple scales, and distances – tensioned and questioned, at times – associated with migrations in contexts of diasporas, but also to urban inequalities and segregations and to hegemonies and subalternate that are structured, reproduced and reconfigured continuously.

On the implementation of UNILAB, while preserving certain characteristics of small interior towns and cities are paradoxically crossed by a greater intensity of processes, flows and networks, inscribing new urban functions in themselves – based on professional, academic and scientific dimensions – expanding its range of influence. In this context, its residents are continually questioned by tensions between (a) different rhythms, logics, epistemes, and urban ontologies, particularly if we consider an expanded urban environment due to diasporas and virtualities that are amplified; (b) traditions and innovations, permanence and changes; (c) pasts, presents and futures that interpellate tension, re-functionalize and re-signify – to illustrate, involving, for example, blackness and racism in cities.

In this context, student youths emerge as relevant urban, social, and political agents, with tensions, conflicts, and intense disputes composing daily life in the countryside. This centrality of a conflictual dimension is related to the processes and urban dynamics of occupation, access, use, regulation, construction, and possession/ownership of urban land of the different parts that make up cities, considering private and public spaces.

It is evident, then, an urban marked by the intensification of urban dynamics, by multiscalar, and more complex articulations between the material, the immaterial, and the virtual. In this sense, it is also worth considering that, like the entire periphery of the global south, the space formed by the university and the two small cities is marked by violence, violations of rights, and deprivation in various orders and scales (MACHADO et al., 2017, 2019). An urban environment marked by inequalities, segregation, and urban issues that repeatedly impact the daily life experience, particularly affecting students in their daily lives (LANGA, 2016; MACHADO et al., 2017, 2019; MALOMALO, 2018), showing oppressions associated with colonialism, coloniality and capitalism.

At the same time, resistance, strategies, tactics, and lines of flight are constantly being reconstructed in the countryside, even more so if we consider that there are many expectations associated with UNILAB, considering democratization, interiorization, cooperation with Africa, historical reparation, human rights and generation of alternatives to development. In this context, the campus is deeply marked by activism, militancy, and social movements – of women, gender, blacks, indigenous peoples, quilombolas, Africans, Afro-descendants, and workers, among others (DIARIO DE CAMPO, 2017-2019)⁴.

3 Between the work of meaning and dealing with problematic situations

Considering the previous questions and understanding that the field is “a field of forces, and also of struggles that aim to transform this field of forces” (BOURDIEU, 2003, p. 38), the constitution of subfields can show vectors relevant to the analysis. In this sense, Alvarez (2014, p. 18-19) indicates how the subfields are constituted through interpretive or discursive disputes, carrying

[...]“languages, meanings, visions of the world that are at least partially shared, even if almost always disputed, by a kind of political grammar that links the actors who identify with them”.

Various subfields are constituted and compose the university-urban campus – feminists, Africans, blacks, indigenous peoples, quilombolas, students, people of African descent, unions, among others. At the same time, it is possible to assess that the bureaucratic-institutional subfield – with its instances, dynamics, meetings, positions, bodies, decisions, capitals, and positions – crosses and integrates all other subfields.

In this way, each subfield generates its own grammars and a universe of shared meanings, constituting frames (NUNES, 2013), or interpretative paradigms (ALVAREZ, 2009), understanding the frame as a “framework that organizes perception and experience and that constrains interpretation, also constituting a necessary condition for its existence” (NUNES, 2013, p. 151). It is possible, therefore, to speak of “interpretive or discursive communities”, with the discourses constituting “a universe of meanings that are translated or (re)constructed when flowing along various political-communicative webs, guiding the strategies and identities of[ /of the] actors who come together in this field” (ALVAREZ, 2014, p. 18-19). However, neither the subfields nor the frames and interpretations are constituted a priori.

A subfield emerges as a group of agents mobilizes, constitute, and operate their own interpretations, discourses, and narratives. Collective interpretations and evaluations intertwine with the very constitution, continuity, or weakening of the subfields and endow the processes and everyday situations experienced by the agents with meaning, with these articulating themselves “through political-communicative networks – or rather, webs or meshes – reticulated ” (ALVAREZ, 2014, p. 18).

In this way, the daily life experienced on the campus shows how the cognitive, discursive and symbolic dimensions and dynamics have centrality and relevance in daily experiences and political struggles, which transit between the formal and the informal.

However, even considering this “work of meaning” (CEFAÏ, 2017a, p. 190), we believe that a pragmatic approach enriches perception, shifting the analytical focus from the discourse category to the experience category. From this perspective, we can speak of disturbance (CEFAÏ, 2017a) as a category that allows us to indicate what disturbs the natural order of things, what would apparently be established, normalized, and naturalized, and what would be accepted spontaneously, thus emerging as a change in the natural attitude. This disorientation can derive and express itself “in the passage to a reflective attitude” (CEFAÏ, 2017a, p. 192). In this sense, Cefaï (2017a, p. 191) indicates how the disorder “is usually born of affective, sensitive or evaluative tests that disturb the evidence base of things in everyday life and lead to investigations to elucidate what this disorder consists of.” And, more than that, it is important to understand that the experience transcends the “intersubjective experiences,” referring to an “ experiential habitat ” (CEFAÏ, 2017a, p. 191), the field, in perspective worked here, involving affective and aesthetic senses, practical experiments and interactional exchanges (CEFAÏ, 2017a).

From these references and questions, it should be noted that the “passage” to a reflective attitude conceptually involves definition dynamics and deals with disturbances, instituting “problematic situations” experienced daily, involving, for example, situations marked by urban inequalities and segregations, sexism, racism, xenophobia, and LGBTphobia. Gradually, and based on certain lived experiences, conditions can be constituted that stress what until then was perceived, felt, and experienced as normal, natural, acceptable, instituting problematic situations that show the procedural emergence of a public dynamic, political and cognitive, which occurs in a more or less intuitive, spontaneous and informal way, evidencing the passage from the private to the public, the displacement of what was until then, considering the order of the private to political/public order.

In this way, the passage from the disturbance to the problematic situation shows that certain sets of agents seek, to some degree, to understand, explain, represent, and control the lived experiences. It is no coincidence, therefore, that:

When Dewey (2003) describes the emergence of the collective of explorers, researchers, and experimenters that form a public, he makes reference to this experiential dimension, inseparably affective, cognitive and normative, anchored in the present, but open to past and present horizons, in which “personal” convictions will be formed, reinforced and expressed in a process of “collectivization” and “publicization” of a case, a problem or a cause. (CEFAÏ, 2009, p. 26)

Considering these theoretical-empirical anchorages, we perceive that the university-urban campus analyzed is centrally marked by a conflictual dimension, in daily life that transcends mere academic formality or the narrow limits of stricto sensu academic dynamics. In this sense, as the agents in the field pragmatically deal with the everyday situations experienced, they constitute, in some cases, significant collective mediations (BLUMER, 1980; CEFAÏ, 2009, 2017a, 2017b), and it is worth highlighting the relevance of the subfields in these Law Suit.

As it is possible to intuit, the definition and way of dealing with problematic situations is not disconnected, therefore, from a work of meaning, but goes beyond it, when it is inscribed in public mobilizations, in shared concerns and problems and, in general, , by composing a “capacity to feel in common [...] that is realized through a collective activity” (CEFAÏ, 2017a, p. 196). In this way, the constitution of “mediations of collective experiences” with a certain sequentiality and cumulativeness is evident, particularly in the subfields, it is worth noting that:

The mediation of a collective experience is, here, essential for the disorder to be problematized and publicized and for people to know what they are dealing with and what to do about it. [...] In other words, they generate a field of collective experience with common sense ways of seeing, saying and doing, articulated by a network of numbers, categories, types, reports and arguments available that allow apprehending a state of affairs as an identifiable and recognizable problem (CEFAÏ, 2017a, p. 192).

Thus, the constitution of the field occurs that sets of agents “delimit problems that have public reach” (CEFAÏ, 2017a, p. 197), with the “trajectory of a public problem” ordering “a horizon of engagements, concerns, of awareness and mobilization in its surroundings”, linking “association, cooperation and communication processes” (CEFAÏ, 2009, p. 16). Therefore, beyond the work of meaning, it is worth talking about everyday practices that involve task adjustment and coordination operations (CEFAÏ, 2009), even if carried out more or less spontaneously. In this process, the constitution of collective mediations and subfields is intertwined, establishing “habits of cooperation and conflict” and providing “parameters of cognitive and normative experience” (CEFAÏ, 2009, p. 19).

To illustrate, in a context where academic studies and discussions converge in the field of feminism and gender studies and disturbances involving gender inequalities and violence, a feminist movement emerges, little by little, linked to an LGBTQIA+ movement, configuring interpretative schemes, discourses and unique problem situations. However, also gradually and from certain significant episodes, some women, students from African countries, constitute practices and discourses that reveal that they do not feel represented by this feminism that is understood, at times, as Brazilian or Westernized. A situation then emerges in which the “presumed consensus”, of the unity of an alleged universal feminist movement, is strained, in which a problematic situation is constituted, with a group of women seeking to deal with it, shaping shared collective experiences, constituting other associative forms, interpretations and discourses. They are thus able, little by little, to excavate the field, shaping their own places or positions and constituting themselves as distinct, active and recognized agents (MACHADO; GOMES; SILVA, 2021).

4 The centrality of the conflictual in the daily experience

Several episodes show the centrality of the conflictual dimension in the field, several times showing the confluence between long-term structures and everyday situations experienced, revealing, beyond the routine that is repeated, a set of racist, sexist, LGBTphobic and xenophobic episodes. Gradually disturbances emerge, with some becoming problematic situations. In the analyzed period, this context worsened in the field due to the strengthening of neoconservative, neo-fascist, and neo-Nazi segments, discourses, and practices in Brazil, with repercussions in the field. Three significant episodes stand out: on June 18, 2016, a report of rape involving UNILAB students emerged; on October 20, 2017, an attempt at feminicide took place inside UNILAB; on July 9, 2019, the UNILAB Transgender Public Notice was launched, generating national repercussions, annulled by the Dean of Undergraduate Studies/Rector on July 17.

The report of rape in 2016 generated tension between Brazilian teachers and teachers from African countries, perceived, for example, in an assembly attended by hundreds of people, mainly teachers, and students, at Pátio da Liberdade, with the speeches revealing a growing tension, with accusations of racism and xenophobia emerging and interpersonal conflict evolving to the point, almost, of physical aggression. The situation was only contained through the intervention of a teacher, a leader of the Women/Gender subfield, who managed to contain the tempers. It should be noted that there were other reports of sexual violence involving UNILAB students, before and after this episode. The most serious episodes generated, at various times, public denouncements and virtual and face-to-face debates, in corridors, classrooms, networks, and virtual groups, in institutional meetings, and in assemblies of segments of the academic community, very marked by tensions and conflicts. In general, on the one hand, the gender and women group denounced, and, on the other, a part of the teachers and students of African countries questioned, in some cases, the way in which the denouncements were being carried out, affecting or targeting a racist and/or xenophobic bias – even unintentionally.

The attempted feminicide involved shootings on the Acarape campus, during the night shift, with the victim and the aggressor being students of the institution. On a Friday night, with more than a thousand people, including professors, students, technicians, security guards, and outsourced workers, the shots took place in the Palmares field, causing panic, with hundreds of people not knowing what exactly was happening. happening in front of the shots fired, running, seeking cover, going downstairs. The student was hit but survived. In the days that followed, various reports circulated, and fear, anxiety, revolt, and sadness were evident, with students, in particular, showing a lot of emotional/psychological suffering. Some leaders, collectives and entities sought to react, denounce, and deal with the situation. One of the most significant episodes involved a poetic and musical soiree at Praça do Obelisco, a traditional meeting point for student youth in Redenção, marked by a lot of emotion, generating space and a situation of collective catharsis and denunciation and confrontation of violence against women.

Another episode that caused great repercussions was the annulment of the Transgender Public Notice, in July 2019, justified by legal bias arguments, generating much criticism and some resistance; unable, however, to reverse the annulment at that moment.

These episodes and processes allow us to perceive how the field and the subfields are constituted as the “presumed consensus of common sense experience” is strained and “the natural attitude of the individuals who compose it is put to the test” (CEFAÏ, 2009, p. 27), revealing the institution of places of collective action from the confrontation of problematic situations. This dynamic is intensified in the urban-university field in question if we consider the character of public distribution and academic-scientific space, as well as the intense presence of social movements, with these vectors giving centrality in the daily dynamics to public scrutiny, the provision of accounts and rea peated criticism. Thus, the daily dynamics of the field reveal “the form of true deliberations in which we expose ourselves to the points of view of others and take them into account in a broader perspective” (CEFAÏ, 2017a, p. 196), at various times, including emphasizing dramatic, expressive, performative accents – which is perceived when we experience the field daily, to the point that several agents state, at different times, colloquially, "how intense UNILAB is!" At the same time, this dynamic is also intensified by the tensions in the urban space, involving older residents, residents before the implementation of the University, and new residents, particularly student youth, articulated to complex urban changes.

Considering these episodes, it is possible to speak of the emergence of a feminist and/or gender subfield, with various agents (DIARIO DE CAMPO, 2017-2019). We understand that in each subfield, there may be one or more poles, which tension, mobilize, aggregate, and polarize. One of these poles predominantly involves Brazilian feminists and LGBTQIA+ activists (DIÁRIOS DE CAMPO, 2017-2019). This group denounced male chauvinism and sexism at various times, including reports of rape involving institution students (DIARIO DE CAMPO, 2017-2019). It stands out, therefore, by having as its banner the fight against rights violations and violence against women and the LGBTQIA+ community, constituting a core of gender and sexuality policies, also active from extension and research groups.

This subfield was able to implement the Social Name Ordinance at UNILAB, in December 2014; establish a nucleus within the Pro-Rectory of Affirmative and Student Policies; hold artistic exhibitions, campaigns, and a course for Defenders of Citizenship Rights, with three editions in 2016, 2017 and 2018; having members chosen for the Board of Directors of the Brazilian Association of Homoculture Studies (ABEH), in 2016, and for the State Council for Human Rights, in 2017; and launch a UNILAB Transgender Notice, in July 2019. Formed alliances with national leaders in the fight against violence against women (DIARIO DE CAMPO, 2017-2019); it was inserted in state, national, and international representative instances and sought to bring together different flags of struggle in confronting violence and rights violations.

Gradually, another pole was constituted in this subfield of women and genders, formed by black African women, students of UNILAB, where associative forms stand out, such as the International Network of African Women (RIMA) and the African Solidarity Collective (SOLAFRO), revealing regimes of action and daily practices. This pole sought to distinguish itself from the others, converging in alliances with Africa, revealing that it is also possible to constitute a certain Pan-Africanism, albeit diffuse and tense, to constitute it (DIARIO DE CAMPO, 2017-2019). Constituting references, discourses, and practices of its own, it sometimes publicly opposed what it assessed as inadequate perceptions, images, and imaginaries, encompassing African men and women, even in episodes of greater dramatic intensity. In this sense, he denounced what he perceived as prejudiced speeches, even if not intentionally said, with a racist and sexist bias.

Therefore, this pole understood that a homogeneous and supposedly universal vision would be constructed and reinforced by the feminist group formed mostly by Brazilian women. This homogeneous view would, even unintentionally, present African women, particularly students, as submissive to men, not autonomous and, therefore, marked by machismo and patriarchy⁵. To this view, the African students oppose, in different situations, African diversity and the existence of ethnically biased traditions in which women assumed preponderant positions and roles to men, among other arguments. They questioned, in particular, certain speeches from the other pole, understanding that these – even when unintentionally – ended up strengthening and legitimizing racist discourses, which constructed images of African men, of students in particular, as being homogeneous, marked by a culture and a sexuality that would place them within the scope of a wild imaginary (FIELD DIARIES, 2017-2019).

The gender/women subfield seems to have failed to articulate “in-common” theoretical-empirical vectors (MBEMBE, 2017), capable of establishing the aggregation of forces and joint action in the face of other agents and, particularly in the face of concrete problematic situations experienced. There is a fragmentation that, even with functionality in internal power disputes, weakens the ability of these agents to dispute hegemonies in the field, including by shifting real confrontations to disputes within the subfield itself. In this way, the subfield seems to be demarcated into two groups, which have not been able to dialogue with each other, which may even be hiding and not strengthening a multiplicity of agents and associative, discursive expressions and practices that more recently have been emerging and coexisting in the countryside – for example, quilombola and indigenous women, as well as women from small towns themselves, with extremely relevant experiences, although not directly participating in the subfield.

Thus, this division does not seem to be making room for “pluralities, contradictions and conflicts that characterize the broader feminist field” (ALVAREZ, 2014, p. 41), even considering “decentering processes within these plural feminisms ” (ALVAREZ, 2014, p. 41, emphasis in the original). Even acknowledging the relevance, power, and achievements of the subfield, fragmentation seems to go hand in hand with a mutual weakening, making it difficult to strengthen based on the construction of common elements, not perceiving the constitution of more organic horizontal dialogues, points of convergence and/or intersection, joint actions and relevant alliances between the indicated poles.

It is also possible to think of other subfields with varied associative formats and action regimes, such as the black, indigenous, and quilombola movements, the African students, and the student movement, intersecting or intertwining in some cases.

In this context, the subfields reveal a capacity to constitute themselves, excavating the field, constituting previously non-existent social and political places, participating in political-institutional instances, and conforming to significant public and/or institutional actions. In this sense, it is important to realize that, in the agents' dealing with problematic situations, interdependencies between agents are evident, as each set of speeches and actions dialogues with or responds to the speeches and actions of other agents.

At the same time, the bureaucratic-institutional and academic dynamics cross all these subfields, marked by varied routines and episodes, experienced in collegiate instances, courses and institutes, classrooms, events, and research and extension activities, in the corridors, patios and canteens, in meetings and assemblies, in the various spaces of cities, private and public, often revealing more or less continuous political struggles, active social groups and movements, including in the various electoral processes – for the rectory, coordinators, and directors, for example – and in the dynamics of decision-making. Considering this vector, we will now discuss some circumstantial changes in the field, which reveal the presence of two significant and distinct cycles, particularly between 2015 and 2019.

5 Featuring two cycles in the field

The university-urban field is strongly marked by “multiple and multidirectional diasporas, often overlapping and interconnected” (ALVAREZ, 2009, p. 749), thus strongly emerging an ontology and an episteme, in which borders and bridges stand out (DE CERTEAU, 1998, p. 209). Here, dialoguing with De Certeau (1998, p. 203-209), we understand that the story has “a decisive role,” understood as “a culturally creative act.” In this perspective, the report “Founder of Spaces" has “distributive power and performative force”, assuming “the primary function of authorizing the establishment, displacement and overcoming of limits”, evidencing “two movements that intersect (establish and going beyond the limit)”, thus highlighting “the border and the bridge ” (DE CERTEAU, 1998, p. 209, emphasis added). Continuously carrying out “demarcation operations”, the story institutes and recreates the constitutive tension between “ the border and the bridge, that is, between a (legitimate) space and its (strange) exteriority” (DE CERTEAU, 1998, p. 209- 212).

In this sense, this unique university-urban field, so marked by historical pluralism and inter-historicity (SEGATO, 2012), expands the areas of contact between different agents, with the story, the border, and the bridge constituting themselves as significant categories to reveal its daily dynamics.

In the field, routines are repeated and unexpected episodes intertwine, sometimes with a routine and sequenced report, but also with impactful speeches, unfolding, separating, and tying together in a daily game, in which situations, reports, and practices are repeatedly discussed and interpreted. In this context, multiple mirrors reveal distinctions, recognitions, reciprocities, and disputes, with each set of agents dealing with disturbances and problematic situations and, at the same time, seeking to excavate, constitute and maintain a certain place of power. In this sense, even certain reports and practices seek to delegitimize or ban other leaders, weakening their influence with specific groups and communities. At stake are the capacities to mobilize, articulate and influence segments and groups of the academic community in a more lasting way, with agents constituting and occupying positions, using varied capital, operating social dispositions required in everyday situations and giving rise to reports, in person and virtually. In all these processes, borders and bridges are revealed.

In recent years, evidence points to changes in the situation in the field. UNILAB held five deans and one dean until the end of 2019, all pro tempore, configuring what we can delimit as two great cycles in the field.

The first cycle involved the administrations of Paulo Speller (2010-2013), Nilma Lino (2013-2014) and Tomaz Aroldo (2015-2016), in the context before the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff, which occurred on August 31, 2016. During this period, the strength of the Institute of Humanities and Letters (IHL) stands out, at least until the end of 2014, and the dynamics of multiple institutional meetings and assemblies with dozens of participants, several of them joint, with technicians and students. Here, a certain bias of innocence, hope, and utopia prevails, with intensity in the dialogues, disputes, and mobilizations and a certain ease in the collectivization of actions, with manifestation and teaching involvement. The year 2015 is significant in this sense. Gradually, this power is fading away, fragmentations occur – the IHL was reorganized into three different institutes – and disenchantment, for example, linked to episodes such as changes in positions and the holding of an election for the rectory, with broad participation of the academic community, not resulting, however, from the choice of the triple list by the superior council of the University.

The change in the dynamics and climate existing in the field is gradually occurring, with the exclusion of the representation of the IHL in the vice-rector, in December 2014, followed by several other internal and external episodes, such as, for example, adding to those already indicated, the changes in the head of the federal government. In the first cycle, the daily life of democratic aspirations is still in place, focusing on overcoming pro-temporality and institutional consolidation of the University.

In the second cycle, marked by the administrations of Anastácio Queiroz (2017-2018) and Alexandre Cunha (2018-2019), there is a restriction in the sphere and public dynamics in the field. From the reduction of moments, instances, situations and democratic processes, from which divergences and mutual interpellations emerged, alliances and oppositions, mediation of conflicts and decision-making were formed. The spaces for listening and daily coexistence typical of the previous situation are reduced (DIÁRIO DE CAMPO, 2017-2019), and there is a shift to the bunkers of the current institutionality, weakening and breaking horizontal and ascending procedures, strengthening concentration, centralization, and dynamics descendants of political power. This cycle becomes effective and reiterated by subordinating certain groups and political forces, seeking to impose a certain inertial dynamic (BOURDIEU, 1996) in the field of power, in the university-urban field. Here, it is worth briefly understanding the field of power as:

[...] the space of power relations between the different types of capital or, more precisely, between the agents sufficiently endowed with one of the different types of capital to be able to dominate the corresponding field and whose struggles intensify whenever the relative value of the different types of capital is called into question (BOURDIEU, 2004, p. 52).

In this second cycle, the “reproduction of the structure of the field of power” gains centrality, marked by the “distribution of powers and privileges among the different categories of agents engaged in this competition”, with “the conservation or transformation of the structure of the field” being at stake. , institutional culture, and dominant power principles (BOURDIEU, 2003, p. 36).

Considering these issues, the new cycle seemed to show, in mid-2019, points of no return, even more so if we consider that it was an institution where the status of initial construction – considering the implementation of UNILAB from 2011 – enables an initiatory conformation that tends to reiterate and remain. In this sense, there would be no more room, in the imaginary being constituted in the field, for “possible incompatibles” (BOURDIEU, 1996, p. 34), heroic refusals or risky democratic bids, even considering the confluence between the internal cycle and the conjuncture national. We are here between 2017 and 2019, remembering the more general context of the country, which points to a fraying of citizenship, attacks on rights and democratic setbacks, a scenario that unfolds and spreads in the university-urban field discussed here, in everyday micro and nanoscales. Thus, what seems to be at stake is the implementation of the “fundamental law of the field” (BOURDIEU, 1996, p. 34) and the structuring of the field of power, forming a repertoire of choices from which one could not escape, and which were perceived and experienced, at that moment, in mid-2019, as absolute and almost irreversible in their immediate effects and in their medium-term implications. Such seems to be the drama unfolding in that cycle at UNILAB.

It is not just about changes in the imaginary and the illusio itself (BOURDIEU, 1996), as they recreate the hegemonies and subalternities, impacting the norms, structures and required social dispositions, with the different agents adapting in a more or less conformed and competent to the daily life that recreates itself. The reports themselves change, with the public dimension diminishing and reporting forms such as gossip, fake news and rumors, and, at the same time, administratively and bureaucratically formalized and tending to be restrictive, everyday circumscriptions taking shape. At the same time, inter-individual conflicts increase in the different administrative sectors, with accusations of moral harassment and an alarming increase in administrative processes denounced as having, some of them, the character of political persecution.

Publicity dynamics tend to be restricted to functions, forms, situations and particular audiences, strengthening dynamics that seek to dissipate, hide or destroy stories, memories and characters from the institutional past that do not fit into the new hegemony. At the same time, it is possible to indict subjugation procedures, the easing of tensions and the weakening of opposition through performances and reports that include face-to-face and virtual praise and thanks, on email lists, for example. Therefore, a symbolic dynamic of subjection/submission emerges, with daily practices that tend to appear as hegemonic, punctuating positions and constituting links and commitments relevant to the field. This emerging dynamic is associated with “material or symbolic” sanctions/profits (BOURDIEU, 1996, p. 66), as well as hierarchies in the field of power, with a hegemonic core and, at the same time, a set of subordinate aggregates (DIÁRIOS DE CAMPO, 2017-2019).

It is even possible to intuit a performance guided by what we could call a “certain extreme of theatricalization”, carried out by these subordinate aggregates. At the same time, the agents of the central hegemonic core seem to experience a “no need for theatricalization”. By exercising this extreme of theatricalization, some agents mobilize signs of their own to the left and/or social movements, shifting them to an individualist dynamic of power, in which certain individuals would inscribe themselves – as a result of characteristics associated with gender, race, and to nationality, for example –, automatically, relevant characteristics, which would stifle the occupation of positions in institutionality, automatically transferring them to the positions held and the institutional structures in which they would participate. This individualization carries with it an authoritarian depoliticization since what is observed, sometimes, is that logics and practices are exercised – not to mention performances – marked by traditionalists, and, why not say, by traces of coloniality, by default of systematic, persistent, collective and/or democratic constructions or dialogues, even if, in some cases, these performances/reports try to express the opposite.

The extremes of theatricality and the incorporation of rebellious signs and social struggles seem to vivify values and feelings common to the context, marked by neoconservative and neofascist influence, not infrequently through the creation of imaginary enemies to be faced, for example, in clashes - electoral or not – involving positions and institutional positions, as well as in public discursive disputes. In this way, the theatrical composition makes effective the a priori classification of enemies, superficially demarcated, shifting the focus of analyses and political interventions to secondary issues and constituting, in some cases, performances and/or reports that touch on the exclusion or destruction of the enemy – performances and stories that shift the focus from substances to forms. Not infrequently, individuals are attacked who, by holding a certain political capital, show themselves as capable of generating alternative poles of power and of aggregating audiences perceived as a reserve/monopoly of segments that perform extreme theatrics.

A bias that also makes up this cycle is the weakening of agents' commitment to projects, with a pragmatic logic of political power emerging and prevailing, seeking legitimacy in alleged or implicit technical and administrative competence, instead of politics and politics. In this sense, it is worth mentioning the displacement – semantic, but also ethical and political – of practices and positions anchored in values and projects, by others, based on the logic, sensitivity, and rationality of the political opportunity, or, more properly, of what is timely in each concrete situation, strengthening individualistic postures and practices. It follows that the political is pragmatically reduced to the conquest and maintenance of positions of power, dividing the academic community into those who subscribe and those who do not subscribe to this new performance.

In this context, forms of material and symbolic gratification and consecration instruments are also instituted to create the feeling that everything is going well-being done properly and that there is room for everyone. In this way, potential places of opposition, opposition and conflict are emptied, although, at the same time, consensus constructions are also emptied as essential elements to the dynamics of the field. Once the conflict is emptied as a legitimate element – from the point of view of the theory of democracy (MIGUEL, 2014) –, the consensus is reduced to constructions carried out by restricted elites, with decisions being communicated to the academic community, already with the character of fact set and/or irreversible. In parallel to this, it is worth mentioning what can be called the logic of tiredness, weariness and exhaustion, marked by the succession of acts and decisions that repeatedly replace/reinscribe an issue or theme in the institutional routine within the scope of a bureaucratist logic, emptying the political character of the issues on the agenda and shifting the decisions of the collegiate democratic instances to the technical margins or to the political centers of the institutional structure – both unattainable to those who do not compose the field of power. In this context, there are even complaints of non-compliance, by the rectory, with decisions made by the Superior Council of the University.

This new cycle, therefore, evidences an ideological displacement of the center of gravity of/in the field (BOURDIEU, 1996), even mentioning the possibility of an ongoing institutional, intellectual and moral reform (GRAMSCI, 2002). In this way, the fundamental law of the field, its nomos (BOURDIEU, 1996), seems to combine elements that reiterate a logic of division, like a broken kaleidoscope that shatters multiple fragments. Thus, divisions are reconstituted between the competent and the non-competent, administratively and technically, between the sensible and the non-sensible, between those who have legitimacy and those who do not, and between technicians and those who “want to make trouble”, among others. others. Divisions supporting the non-necessity or impossibility of criticism and opposition from a context marked by the end of history and post-truth. Conflict and criticism are understood as unnecessary and undesirable when they do not reveal, a priori, incompetence. These divisions and conceptions are reinforced through the subordinating incorporation of certain segments in the performative marks of extreme theatricality, configuring tactics of demobilization, blockade and interdiction of potential oppositions and resistance, several times incorporating and neutralizing individuals and groups by entangling them in the meshes of the power that seek to become hegemonic.

In mid-2019, therefore, the time for the “extraordinary” seems to have ended (BOURDIEU, 1996, p. 80). The temporalities of utopias and dreams – and also of heroisms – are being crossed by overlapping disenchantments and frustrations, maintaining, perhaps, a little of the extreme clarity (BOURDIEU, 1996) – tensioning us – that permeates the initiatory times of the constitution of One field.

Synthesizing and comparing the two indicated cycles, if in the first, we could have the perception of the constitution, even if brief and incipient, of public arenas in a sense indicated by Cefaï (2017a, p. 204, emphasis in the original), in the field, in the second period, this public dimension seems to have effectively disappeared:

The public arena is co-produced as a discussion forum: the fact that points of conflict have to be defended and justified and that adverse positions have to be criticized and invalidated implies operations of evaluation, deliberation and judgment. In such a public arena, its representatives demand explanations, take positions and respond to criticism. They exchange arguments that become more and more conformable to the public interest. George H. Mead describes this way of rising above the horizon of moral community and mutual recognition between actors as adopting the perspective of the generalized Other. [...] Human beings have the capacity to transcend their selfish interests to realize public interest figures.

However, beyond this alleged hegemony under construction, it is necessary to realize that, at the same time, the interstices, the fringes and the gaps that cross and also constitute the field, seem to conform – even in an intuitive, spontaneous, latent and fragmentary way – a politics and aesthetics of peripheries and subalternity, entangling strategies and tactics marked by evasions, or, more properly, insinuating powers, lines of flight and minority becomings (PASSOS; KASTRUP; ESCÓSSIA, 2015). In this sense, immersion in the field made identifying signs that reveal denser and more complex daily dynamics possible.

This could be intuited, for example, in an event held in December 2019, entitled Thinking Africa from UNILAB and UNILAB from Africa (DIÁRIO DE CAMPO, 2017-2019). Speeches by African students and teachers exposed the variety and intensity of dissatisfaction in the field, with reports referring to violence, violations of rights, inequalities and internal distinctions, along with what should be named as disenchantment with the UNILAB Project, expressed by example, in the speech of an African professor, who referred to the institution as a decoy. In this event, there was also an evocation of memories of student struggles and resistance, including their potential for building identities and excavating their places in the field (DIÁRIO DE CAMPO, 2017-2019). Some students directed their speeches to a fellow professor, discouraged and tired of the wear and tear experienced in the field, indicating directly and publicly: “You don't have the right to get tired and give up, although we understand that it is a very personal decision! But we've been here longer than you, and we haven't given up, and we've already fought hard and achieved achievements that need to be preserved” (DIÁRIOS DE CAMPO, 2017-2019).

It is also worth mentioning the informal collective self-appointed as Professors no Samba, capable of tensioning, demobilizing, making certain borders flow and making porous, reconstituting spaces and situations capable of recreating, more than bonds, associative regimes, of belonging and actions (DIÁRIO DE CAMPO, 2017-2019). Acting outside the UNILAB space, this collective has been able to mobilize women located, a priori, in a broad spectrum of political, ideological and social movements, shifting the dynamics of social mobilization to what can be understood a priori as a modus operandis infra or pre-political. However, suppose we dialogue with certain authors and conceptions. In that case, we perceive, in this experience, the interconnection that involves everyday micropolitics/politics and institutional mesopolitics, maintaining a presence in the field through tricks and swings capable of potentially reconfirming existing strategies and tactics, even displaced from the current institutional centralities, which become hegemonic (DIARIO DE CAMPO, 2017-2019).

In the same way, the weekly soccer game of Guinean students is a space to exercise conflict, contradiction and its mediation, to listen, vent, generate support, bond and mutual commitment, maintain reiterated coexistence, collective strength and the shared senses (DIARIO DE CAMPOY, 2017-2019) – powers that tell us about the tensions that cross the field, even when more immediately everything seems to be expected, well or dominated.

Thus, it is essential to perceive significant empirical vectors to emerge and be rebuilt, considering the two cycles indicated and highlighting the importance of problematizing whether/how they will remain active or be replaced by different processes after 2019.

6 Final considerations

The moment of the genesis of a field is theoretically and empirically significant since it is when agents emerge and constitute themselves that “translate their articulating discourses and begin to enunciate other universes of meanings, other visions of the world, and thus, perhaps, configure other discursive fields of action” (ALVAREZ, 2014, p. 47). More than that, they constitute fields of power, ways of dealing with problematic situations and unique cycles.

In this context, an area is revealed where interpretive communities and collective experiential mediations are configured, with agents who deal with difficult situations daily and repeatedly.

Although international temporary migrants seem to be experiencing dynamics of growing subordination, several signs point to their vitality, strength, and active and creative presence. Beyond what is immediately visible, or rather, the most immediate – and allegedly hegemonic – appearances of the field, it is worth perceiving flows, movements, intensities, tensions and conflicts that indicate significant becomings and powers. These, even in the minority, fragmentary and latent, make up efforts of opposition, resistance and generation of alternatives, even if in the interstices, fringes and peripheries of the field.

If we think about the performances, the aesthetic regimes (BOURDIEU, 1996) and the figures that make up the field, the perception of the end of heroic times and the arrival of the end of history and post-history would be restricted to the hegemonies that are instituted and reiterated, not indicting the small and capillary tricks and swings that cross everyday life and also compose it. In this way, it is worth noting shifts to the interstices, the peripheries, and the margins based on dissatisfaction and wears that accumulate, although, often, they are invisible as an essential vector in mid-2019. Thus, although the risk of the continued prevalence of this hegemonic form is present, interdicting effective democratization, other spaces of possibilities are active.

It is, therefore, appropriate to continue this analysis at another time, even using the analytical framework presented here, critically discussing what happens in the field from 2020 onwards.

• 1
  Started in 1965, PEC-G is the largest program for accessing international students to Brazilian universities.
• 2
  It is intended to do this at another time.
• 3
  We think it is important to highlight that the urban composes and configures this campus, in Ceará, intensely and uniquely. However, this article does not focus on a broader analysis of this aspect.
• 4
  Field diaries of the project Students, rights and urban territories in the Massif of Baturité: an experience of territorialization and democratization in student assistance at UNILAB, whose records cover the period from 2017 to 2019.
• 5
  It is not possible, within the limits of this article, to deepen this debate in its theoretical and empirical dimensions.

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Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  25 Sept 2023
• Date of issue
  2023

History

• Received
  23 Jan 2022
• Accepted
  13 June 2023
• Reviewed
  31 July 2023