photo: Leonardo Rodrigues
Diana Mendes Machado da Silva is a Visiting Scholar jointly at the Centre for Culture, Identity and Education (CCIE) and the Department of Educational Studies (EDST) at UBC from January to July, 2024.
Dr. da Silva is a Brazilian historian and researcher affiliated with the Human Rights, Democracy, and Memory Group at the Institute of Advanced Studies, University of São Paulo, and with the Afro-Brazilian Studies Center at the Federal University of São Paulo.
Previously, she worked as an Assistant Professor at the University of São Paulo (2022-2024). During her tenure, she was the coordinator of the Racial Violence Observatory, where she led research on the public perception of racial violence in Brazil based on newspaper articles. She also conducted research on Black Women’s Health, which focused on the relationship between the public system and local traditional and popular knowledge in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Salvador. Additionally, she co-coordinated an extension project devoted to producing content to help implement the Brazilian law that requires teaching African and Afro-Brazilian History and Culture in elementary and secondary schools.
Her Master’s and Ph.D. research, situated in Cultural Studies and Popular Culture Studies, focused on the popular immigrant and Black fandom and consumption of soccer and its impact on the construction of Brazilian modernity and national identity. She has published two books on this subject and is currently preparing her third book, which examines the construction of Black soccer celebrities in Brazil.
“During her time at UBC she plans on having interactions with colleagues at the CCIE, the EDST and the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice, including discussions and possible collaboration on the sociocultural aspects of the African diaspora in the Americas, the development of anti-racist policies and addressing anti-Black racism and other forms of discrimination in and through education.”
Dr. da Silva will deliver a CCIE & EDST sponsored talk in June (date and topic to be announced).
