Interdisciplinary Center for African Descendent Research and Heritage (Nirema)
Coordinator
Sérgio Hamilton da Silva Barra
Nirema is a complementary unit of PUC-Rio linked to the History, Social Work, Sociology and Politics Departments.
It is a research and documentation center of the African Brazilian culture. It develops activities and interdisciplinary initiatives that involve representatives from PUC-Rio´s faculty and staff.
Nirema activities involve not only professors from PUC-Rio but also have a body of associate researches belonging to other educational institutions in Brazil and abroad.
Main Goals
- Comparative studies between Brazil and other multicultural societies, specially the US and Canada, as well as African and Latin American countries.
- Promotion of interdisciplinary and comparative research between Brazilian society and other countries, related to afrodescendent cultural patrimony.
- Systematical construction, maintenance and growth of an afrodescendent documentation and memory center;
- Development and achievements of Nirema´s activities.
- Creation of academic disciplines related to afrodescendent diaspora in Brazil and America, and also about contemporary African societies, in the undergraduate, graduate and continuing education levels.
- Creation and development of curricula and didactical and pedagogical material for the high and elementary levels of study, concerning themes related to the afrodescendent cultural patrimony