2024-2027

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Global Arab Relations

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In 2024, I was awarded a three-year research grant by the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) to develop the project titled “Arab Global Relations: Teaching, Research and Diplomacy.” This study builds on a research conducted between 2020 and 2023, entitled Teaching and Learning International Relations of Arab World. The project revisits the following fundamental questions:

i) What is “International Relations of the Arab World” (RIMA)?

ii) How and why should this course (distinct from International Relations of the Middle East) be taught at the post-graduate level?

iii) How and why should knowledge about RIMA extend beyond the walls of academia and reach other sectors of Brazilian society? The research assumes that the teaching of RIMA at the graduate level must be shaped by the context in which it is taught, incorporating the prior knowledge of students about the region (situated knowledge) and giving the discipline a practical orientation — in terms of praxis, as knowledge aimed at intervening in reality. The central axis and ultimate goal of this project is to contribute to the formation of high-level human resources, capable of working in environments of academic excellence as well as in regional and international organizations. The university extension component of this proposal seeks to train Brazilian diplomats posted in Arab countries, military personnel engaged in peacekeeping and international cooperation missions, and entrepreneurs interested in establishing commercial relations with the Arab world. Moreover, it aims to promote the articulation of social movements and political parties from both Arab and Brazilian contexts, and to strengthen international research networks that bring together Brazilian, South American and Arab scholars. All of this converges toward the ultimate goal of fostering the expansion and consolidation of partnerships between Brazil and the Arab countries, at both state and non-state levels.

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2020 - 2022

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Teaching-learning of International Relations of the Arab World

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What is "International Relations of the Arab World"? How – and why – should this discipline be taught at the graduate level? These are the three interrelated questions that this project seeks to answer, based theoretically and methodologically on Paulo Freire's philosophy of education, on the International Relations (IR) literature focused on the studies of global regions and concerned with the construction of a less North-centric/Westernocentric discipline and therefore truly global in form, scope and content. The hypothesis that guides this project is that the advancement of knowledge about how states, institutions and social movements considered "Arab" interact with each other and with their non-Arab peers, both regionally and globally, requires a discipline of its own. This is due to the fact that a course focused on International Relations of the Arab World (RIMA) allows the study of a whole set of political, economic, social and cultural dynamics that simply cannot be adequately addressed when included in the broader discipline of International Relations of the Middle East. And this RIMA discipline must be built from the place where it is taught, that is, starting from the knowledge that students already have about the region and giving it a practical meaning – in terms of praxis, of knowing in order to intervene in reality.

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2018 - Current

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NEBRICS – LEA-BRICS Research Line

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This work proposal, linked to the NEBRICS group from UFRGS, seeks to develop studies on the bilateral institutional relations between the League of Arab States (LEA) and the members of the BRICS. Among the topics that this line of research encompasses, the developments of the Sino-Arab Cooperation Forum, Indo-Arab Cooperation Forum and Russian-Arab Cooperation Forum, which started in 2004, 2008 and 2009, respectively, stand out. It also discusses the development of relations between the LEA and Brazil, especially within the terms of the ASPA Summit, started in 2005