Roots of black epistemicide: analysis of the scientific production of ENANCIB (1994-2019)

Abstract:

This study aims to present the roots of black epistemicide in the country in interface with the event of this phenomenon in the biggest event of Brazilian Information Science, the National Meeting of Research and Graduate Studies in Information Science. We briefly discuss two phenomena that explain the origins of black epistemicide: colonialism and slavery, which contributed to the development of a structural racism in the country that affected the social exclusion of black people, in Brazilian society, in different contexts, including the environment science and, therefore, in scientific productions. In the theoretical scope, we discuss the impacts of colonialism and slavery for the epistemic silencing imposed on the black community in Brazil and the concepts of epistemicide and its consequences in the construction of knowledge of the black people. The exposed results indicated a low representation of studies on the black population, in the event addressed, and evidenced the reflection of structural racism and epistemicide in the main event in the area. The conclusive considerations pointed out that the issue of black epistemicide, at the meeting, begins to be partially resolved with the creation of GT 12 of the event, which will give more opening to themes aimed at the black population at the event. In general terms, the need for a quantitative and qualitative leap in discussions about black epistemicide was considered, as well as the need to follow the phenomenon in other sources in the context of Information Science.

Keywords:
structural racism; slavery; colonialism; epistemicide; ENANCIB