Happened at LISA

Between September 24th and 26th, 2025, the Center for Afro-Brazilian Arts of the University of São Paulo (NECAAB) will hold the Afro-Brazilian Arts Meetings, with support from the Image and Sound Laboratory in Anthropology of the University of São Paulo (LISA-USP), Postgraduate Program in Social Anthropology (PPGAS-USP), group “Research in Musical Anthropology” (PAM-USP) and Center for Anthropology, Performance and Drama (NAPEDRA-USP).

This year's edition is themed "WITHOUT GROUND, THERE'S NO ANGOLA," and activities include artistic expressions, traditional knowledge, decolonial practices, and ancestral technologies cultivated over nearly three decades at USP. It will be an opportunity to learn from masters and mistresses who are guardians of this knowledge and to discuss the centrality of territory in preserving memory, transmitting knowledge, and strengthening Black struggles. The program will be free and open to the public. Check it out:

We invite you to a lively conversation about the film "Floresta de Fitas", directed by Priscilla Ermel, who will be present at the AntropoCena sessions, moderated by Rose Satiko Gitirana Hikiji.

The screenings will take place in the auditorium of the Image and Sound Laboratory in Anthropology at the University of São Paulo (LISA-USP) on the following dates:

September 23, 2025: Sessions at 2:00 PM and 4:00 PM
September 24, 2025: Session at 7:00 PM

In "Floresta de Fitas," São Paulo-based composer and multi-instrumentalist Priscilla Ermel revisits her artistic trajectory alongside poet Cora Coralina and anthropologist Carmen Junqueira, revealing resonances between the musical creations in analog studios in the 1980s and the dreamlike universe of the Cinta-Larga indigenous people with whom the artist lived during this period. The script is interwoven with the stories of these characters featured on her first album, "Saber Sobre Viver," produced by legendary sound engineer Hugo Gama.

On September 18, 2015, at 8 p.m., SESC Pinheiros will screen the film Montando a Baiana as part of the Encontro de Baianas Ricas event.

The directors of the film, Aurélio Prates and Kelwin Marques, as well as a researcher from the Visual Anthropology Group (GRAVI-USP), will attend the film debate. The discussion will focus on the presence of Baianas Ricas in Maracatu Nation royal processions, particularly from the mid-20th century onward. During this period, individuals who challenged traditional gender norms, including transvestites and gay men, began to occupy central roles.

Supported by the Laboratory of Image and Sound in Anthropology (LISA-USP), the film explores the relationship between these Baianas Ricas of Maracatu and their ancestry. This relationship can stem from the memories of older baianas or from contact with non-human females, such as the Yabás, Mestras de Jurema, and Pombagiras.

For more information about the event, please visit: https://www.sescsp.org.br/programacao/montando-a-baiana/.

Between September 11 and 12, 2025, the Cinemateca Brasileira will host the seminar “Crossed views between France and Brazil on the challenges of preserving and accessing audiovisual heritage: focusing on the audiovisual memory of Indigenous Peoples”, with the support of the Laboratory of Image and Sound in Anthropology at USP (LISA-USP).

The event is free and will feature simultaneous French-Portuguese translation, interpretation in Libras, and live streaming on the Cinemateca's  YouTube channel. 

Focusing on indigenous memory, the seminar aims to discuss the representation and preservation of indigenous culture in audiovisual media, promoting its visibility and appreciation.

Check out the full schedule in link.

The University of São Paulo (USP) will host the Franco-USP Week of Cooperation in Sciences, Arts and Humanities, from September 15 to 26, 2025. The event celebrates scientific collaborations between French universities and USP and, this year, gains special prominence by commemorating 200 years of bilateral relations between France and Brazil.

The program, which is the result of a partnership between different sectors of the University, the Consulate General of France in São Paulo, the Worlds in Transition Laboratory (IRL-CNRS-USP) and IdA-pôle Brésil, incorporates activities related to the Saison Croisée Brésil-France 2025, an agenda launched by Presidents Emmanuel Macron and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, with a view to strengthening ties between the two countries.

One of the highlights of the event is the international colloquium "Worlds in Transition: New Approaches to Fieldwork", which will include screenings of audiovisual productions from the Laboratory of Image and Sound in Anthropology (LISA-USP) followed by discussions with researchers and film directors:

We invite you to a meeting with Prof. Dr. Marco Antônio Gonçalves on September 02, 2025, at 3:00 p.m., in the auditorium of the Image and Sound Laboratory in Anthropology (LISA-USP).

The event "Glances, Imaginaries, and (m)Flames: Weaving Anthropologies in Times of Crisis" proposes a reflection on the contemporary challenges of anthropology and on how images, cinema, and other visual/expressive practices can inspire new languages, worlds, and methodologies in the face of current climatic, social, and political emergencies.

On September 15, 2025, at 4 p.m., the Métis Convida edition will feature Alex Flynn, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Flynn will present his research, "Paths to Utopia: Temporalities of Transformation in the Landless Movement."

How can we learn from animals to recover from catastrophic forest fires? In this presentation, Verónica Policarpo will address this question based on the ABIDE project, which examines post-fire recovery in three countries: Brazil, Portugal, and Australia. Policarpo will share aspects of her fieldwork in the Serra da Estrela region and discuss ways animals can inspire the creation of multispecies communities with greater ecological diversity, leading to more effective post-fire regeneration and resilience.

Policarpo is an anthropologist and a senior researcher at the Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Lisbon (ICS-ULisboa), as well as the coordinator of the Human-Animal Studies Hub. She currently leads the interdisciplinary project "ERC ABIDE (ID 101043231): Animal ABidings: Recovering from Disasters in More-Than-Human Communities," investigating how multispecies communities, including nonhuman animals, recover from disasters such as forest fires. The project proposes an interdisciplinary approach and more-than-human governance to address climate crises.

The ERC ABIDE project, coordinated by Verónica Policarpo, is funded by the European Union's European Research Council.

An ethnographic exploration of anthropological failure through the Mapuche archetypes of witch, clown, and usurper How do we learn what failure looks like? During the years anthropologist Magnus Course spent living with Indigenous Mapuche people in southern Chile, he came to understand failure—both his own and those of the discipline of anthropology—through Mapuche narratives of the witch, the clown, and the usurper. In a context of enduring poverty and racism, increasing state repression, and his own disintegration, he began to realize that these figures of failure, and their insatiable appetites for destruction, greed, and property, reflected as much upon his own failings as on anybody else’s, but also showed the way forward to a better way to live. Set amidst the stunning natural beauty and political tragedies of southern Chile, Three Ways to Fail is the story of what it means to become a part of other people’s lives, of what it means to fail them, and of what it means to live well when everything falls apart. Grounded in three decades of work and collaboration with Mapuche people, Three Ways to Fail sheds new light on Indigenous lifeways in the Americas while grappling with broader questions about the nature of ethnographic writing and the future of anthropology. Professor Magnus Course da Universidade de Edimburgo.