This space here is to start talking about science considering the multiple dimensions of this human activity, far beyond what so many consider its main and final products (scientific articles) and related indicators. Among these various dimensions, we have to look carefully at the places where science takes place, among which public universities stand out. And this place today deserves special attention.
A few days ago one of its important coordinators, Antonio Candido, of particular relevance to Unicamp, died. Remembering him, other names began to orbit in my memory, composing the instigating panorama of thoughts expressed in Portuguese on university issues. From the contemporaneity of Boaventura de Souza Santos, we can return to the precursor Anísio Teixeira, go through Darcy Ribeiro and also remember the practically forgotten inventory of Roque Spencer Maciel de Barros on the intense Brazilian debate about the idea of university in the 19th century.
Thinking about education, universities and science in Brazil, the walk down memory lane involves another name: Florestan Fernandes. And we return forcefully to current moments with speeches questioning the public university, in which the flags of its financing and efficiency stand out. Access (by car) to Unicamp's main campus is, in this context, undoubtedly a pertinent concern, after all, tens of thousands of people circulate there daily. One of these entrances houses a memorial to Florestan Fernandes, which in the form of an open book (aesthetically questionable) bears a phrase from this sociologist: “the objective of education is to invent and reinvent civilization without barbarism”. Recently, during a rainy Sunday, I passed it again after a long time, thinking about the time when I read the phrase every day when I arrived at university. Today we have another entrance nearby, more efficient, affectionately nicknamed “tapetinho”, which has become busier by far. Thus, the memorial to Florestan Fernandes was relegated to oblivion: opened in 1995, shortly after the death of the person honored, the phrase about education is practically erased, several words only vaguely appear. The campus changes and grows as a material translation of the university's reaction to the growing social demands with which it needs to commit. But the fading of the phrase about education is a symbolic warning about how we respond to these commitments. The invention and reinvention of civilization without barbarism also requires inventions and reinventions from the university, which can think both about the transit of what already exists and the circulation of new ideas. It seems to me that the warning is equally valid, putting science in place of education.
In these twenty years, while the record of Florestan Fernandes' aphorism in access to university slowly disappeared, the symbolic capital of compilation of another nature grew: indicators of internationally indexed scientific production (and later of its impact among peers), which subsequently they became the guarantors of university rankings. Nothing against it, as they (rankings and indicators) are my research bread and butter, but they have their problems. Climbing positions in these tables leads us to limit ourselves to what Ismael Ráfols[1] calls the “search space well lit by the indicators”, which is smaller than the “search space”, which, in turn, is smaller than the “problem space”. And what awaits us in this vast territory? Below is a simple example.
The National Interdisciplinary Colloquium on Applied Human and Social Sciences recently took place at the Faculty of Applied Sciences at Unicamp in Limeira. One of the works presented was called “Sadism and its multiplicity: literature, philosophy and psychoanalysis”. During a ride to the bus station, the author expressed gratitude to the event organizers for accepting the work, which until then had been systematically rejected in other scientific soirees on the grounds that the theme and language used were not appropriate to the environment. academic (?). It seems that this minimum of boldness can reveal part of an immense territory.
[1] http://www.sibi.usp.br/noticias/ismael-rafols-avaliacao-pesquisa-inclusiva/