International Decolonial Exchange Project Summer School Programme 2026

MACTRI Summer School hosts International Decolonial Exchange Project Summer School Programme 2026

Programme: International Decolonial Exchange Project in partnership with two Brazilian Universities.

When is the programme taking place: September 25th, 12-6pm

Location: Luther King House, Manchester https://maps.app.goo.gl/BzuiUiZ2wtMcjGw57

Zoom video conferencing:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86345793926?pwd=seItofvSFq1qzr1KNwbndPKWf5RBVx.1

Meeting ID: 863 4579 3926

Passcode: 179724

For the second year, MACTRI is hosting the UK arm of the Abdias Nascimento Academic Development Program which is a collaborative project between the Federal University of the Amazon, Federal University of the Mato Grosso and Manchester Community Training & Research Institute (MACTRI)/Manchester/United Kingdom.

Objectives of the Programme

In this first stage of the collaboration between institutions the objectives are:

For Brazilian PhD and Masters students to visit the UK to conduct research on UK policies around access to Higher Education and the resilience strategies Black and Indigenous students in Brazil employ and to also explore how they can continue to develop their research by using UK scholarly and community networks as inspiration
To develop multifocal exchange experiences by offering joint courses in a hybrid format that enable the exchange of experiences between the Brazilian Graduate students involved and the Scholars at MACTRI and their extended community networks in Manchester, Luton and London. This will contribute to Master’s and doctoral development of a decolonial praxis that considers Black and Indigenous epistemologies and their ancestral heritages. This will dovetail with MACTRI’s decolonial publishing programme.
To support the internationalisation and strengthening of the Brazilian Graduate Programs involved in the project by awarding scholarships, conducting missions, mobility, international cooperation between research groups, and exchange experiences that will contribute to the theoretical and methodological improvement of research, intellectual production and the inclusion of Black and Indigenous Amazonian students.

Overall goal of the programme

The overall goal of this leg of the programme is to use UK grassroots decolonial praxis as an inspiration for the Brazilian development of methods and strategies that combat epistemic racism generated by curricula frameworks and research practices that fail to incorporate Black, Indigenous, Latin American critical knowledge into their foundations.

We intend that the second leg of the project will be an opportunity for MACTRI’s Scholars and community partners to visit communities in the Mato Grosso and Amazonian regions to gain an insight into their grassroots decolonial practices.

Programme origins

The program began in 2024, with an institutional visit to England. In 2025, eight Brazilian students (Master’s and doctoral) be participated in exchange activities in the United Kingdom through this partnership.

Programme of Presentations and Activities

See Timetable

Reels made by the Students

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Study Sessions

As part of the exchange, students have also been participating in weekly study sessions that gave them the opportunity to discuss the decolonial reading list that the Institute provided them.

Courtesy of Cani Alves

Report

As a result of the Summer School Dabacuri Conference, we (Professoras Iolete Da Silva, Adria De Lima Sousa (UFAM) and Dr Ornette D Clennon (MACTRI) Eds.) are busy preparing a book proposal to form part of the Palgrave Studies in Decolonisation and Grassroots Black Organic Intellectualism. The book will very much continue the UK/Brazil decolonial dialogue initiated by the 2023 book, Decoloniality in the Grassroots and The Re-emergence of the Black Organic Intellectual by Professor Claudia Sampaio and Dr Ornette D Clennon. The edited volume will explore

The trajectories and opportunities for Black students in education, Higher Education and teacher training in Brazil and the UK
– looking at ancestral and supplementary education – how education is accessed and the difference it can make to local grassroots communities
Social (and geographical) mobility of Black and Indigenous students
Colonial structures enabling Racism and Ableism in Higher Education
Black Motherhood – looking at Traditional (Indigenous) models of motherhood
Motherhood and Ballroom Culture – looking at contemporary models of motherhood that challenge gender stereotypes and actively operate within decolonial frameworks
Challenging Masculinities when looking at IPV (Intimate Partner Violence) using a Decolonial Toolkit of emotional, spiritual and cultural intelligences with emotional resilience as a form of aftercare for male victims and the rehabilitation of male perpetrators – also looking at Spiritual intelligence as a way into accessing Indigenous forms of Masculinities i.e. traditional/ancestral “gender” formations