From the Amazon to Lyon
Antônio Eduardo de Oliveira Junior, a graduate student at the Postgraduate Programme in Society and Borders, Federal University of Roraima, Brazil, was awarded a travel grant to present his paper "Identity on the Border: a reflection on "be" in Pacaraima, Brazil" to the Diaspora and Media Working Group.
In this article he shares his thoughts about the experience:
A few days before I left for Lyon, I was thinking about what it would be like to cross the Atlantic for the first time. On this occasion, I would get to know the Old World, the land of great philosophers and thinkers who have long influenced our Latin American culture. What could I find in common between the features of the city that welcomed us and the reality of my own? What would it be like to cross the Brazilian Amazon, on one of the longest journeys I have ever made, to get to know another continent? The answers to these and other questions were not only answered but felt. However, after much research on the city, its history, historical personalities, education and culture, one of them went unnoticed by the search filters: Lyon is a city that welcomes many people on the move to Europe, that is, migrants!
I went to the event to present an approved paper reflecting on migrants in the far north of Brazil. And as if by the irony of fate, I presented in a city that also reflects the arrival of the same global phenomenon. The various intersections that permeate the phenomenon of human mobility around the world reach us with the help of the media, which are important channels for mediating cultural exchanges that strengthen the dynamics of life in local society. Or even, unfortunately, to criminalize the arrival of foreigners, affecting a (utopian) national identity.
The discussions proposed in the Diaspora and Media Working Group were sensational, as I had the opportunity to see other debates, mainly from the Eastern and Asian world, as well as enriching, as it allowed me to get to know other authors discussed and debated in the texts, methods, and methodologies. And not only that: the plenary sessions provoked good reflections that I will use in my meditations and texts, a new way of inhabiting the planet from thinking. In fact, "feeling" and "thinking" (sentipensar) is the method of approach used in my text (BORDA, Orlando Fals, 1991). So it is very concrete that the experience lived in Lyon 2023 has enriched me academically and professionally!
I would also like to highlight the many encounters with people from all over the world: the exchange of experiences, the friendships, the professional and research contacts, the advice of the most experienced, and the simplicity of experiencing the fraternity and joy of intense days of scientific production and action.
Thank you very much, IAMCR Lyon 2023.
Antônio Eduardo de Oliveira Junior
Federal University of Roraima, Postgraduate Programme in Society and Borders
IAMCR travel grants are funded with a percentage of all IAMCR membership payments plus the voluntary contributions of IAMCR members and supporters.