Interview with Valerie Gruber: Connecting Latin America and Africa (14.10.2020)

If you take a look at the profile of our Junior Fellow Valerie Gruber, you will quickly notice that a lot has happened before she started her doctoral studies. Valerie graduated in 2016 with a Master’s degree in International Cultural and Business Studies in Passau and has spent several study-related stays in Spain, Mexico and Brazil. Finally, she sticked to Brazil, lived in ‘favelas’ and got in touch with the Afro-descendant population there. These encounters eventually led her from Salvador da Bahia to Bayreuth.

Bayreuth doesn’t have considerably more inhabitants than Passau (our alumnus Charles Moyo also studied in the small town on the border to Austria). Therefore, Valerie Gruber is familiar with quiet, neat little towns where it is easy to live and study. The difference between Salvador da Bahia and Bayreuth, however, does not pass by without leaving a trace (about 75,000 vs. nearly 3 million inhabitants). Nevertheless, her journey took her directly from Brazil to Bayreuth to explore the relations between Europe, Africa and Latin America. After holding several positions at different institutions in Bayreuth and carrying out a DAAD-funded research stay in Colombia, Valerie has now been a research associate in the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence at the University of Bayreuth for almost a year. Her project is titled: “Moral Geographies of Re-Existence: Socio-cultural Practices and Visions of a Good Life in Afro-descendant Communities in Salvador da Bahia (Brazil) and Cartagena de Indias (Colombia)”. 

While living in Bayreuth, the doctoral student travels back to Latin America on a regular basis (of course before the Covid-19 pandemic and currently only virtually). Her research and collaboration with Afro-descendant communities in Brazil and Colombia is of utmost importance to Valerie. Her time in Latin America has motivated her to complement her experiences and insights with a dissertation. Through countless dialogues, explorations and some detours, her research topic has developed organically. She now sees her doctorate “as an opportunity to formalize a project that has grown over the years”. In February 2020 she was admitted to BIGSAS as a doctoral student.

No conventional research

She doesn’t want to limit her research to common methods such as participant observation or interviews. In dialogue with local people (both in Brazil and Colombia), Valerie Gruber has begun to think things differently and has worked towards developing a collective research practice. In doing so, she focuses on two port cities which, as places of colonisation and enslavement, have taken on an ambivalent socio-political and socio-cultural role. In order to compare these multi-layered contexts, she has developed a participatory approach in collaboration with BIGSAS alumnus Dr. Gilbert Shang Ndi and the communities, with ten people each from Brazil and Colombia participating in an intercultural exchange. The two focus groups, which jointly produce knowledge and art, have already been able to get to know each other through a series of digital meetings and will (if travel regulations permit) meet in person next year.

Hence, her participatory action research is by no means a conventional approach – rather, learning with and from each other is at the centre of her project.

Issues of re-existence and ‘buen vivir’ (good life) are discussed

Valerie Gruber has been part of social and cultural projects in Brazil and Colombia for years. Working together, they ask the question: “How can the arts stimulate social transformation?” And: “What can the various communities learn from each other in the pursuit of a good life?” In this context, the traumatic past of enslavement as well as the current experience of social inequality and racial discrimination is of particular importance. The selected partner organisations, Grupo Cultural Candilé from Cartagena and Rede REPROTAI from Salvador, make use of artistic forms of expression such as music, dance and poetry in order to preserve their history and cultural heritage and, at the same time, rethink their future. 

These forms of art, pedagogy and communication are also an important part of the virtual exchange, which currently takes place every two weeks via video conference. Although field research had to be postponed, the ongoing dialogue is already a complete success. Every meeting ultimately revolves around the question of re-existence in its various forms and manifestations.

“How can art and culture stimulate socio-spatial transformation and how can people enjoy a good or better life in their communities?”

The meetings take place in Portuguese and Spanish. Although sometimes everyone understands each other quite well, a translation is needed for deeper discussions. Valerie is in charge of translating, which means that “mental digression is not allowed” ;-). But the meetings are a lot of fun and one can already see the effects of digital networking. In a WhatsApp group, the members of the participatory action research programme exchange ideas on a variety of topics. In addition, language courses were organised so that the participants can understand each other better. The Brazilian group members have already been successfully implementing community-based tourism for several years – an area from which their Colombian fellows want to learn. Through all these encounters, visions of a ‘better life’ are revealed.

Project is the focus of attention 

Her PhD is obviously important to the Junior Fellow. In the end, however, her studies should not only result in a book.

“I’m not doing the dissertation because of the title, but because of the project. The doctorate is an ideal opportunity to do exactly this – knowledge co-production is combined with a socially responsible and artistic project. And it was always clear to me: either this project or none.”

The limited freedom to travel is not easy for Valerie either, and when asked what other activities are left to do when not being able to travel to Colombia or Brazil, the PhD student replies with a smile: “I love water – even rivers and lakes”. And the access to nature is of course an easy one here in Upper Franconia. She also loves dancing. Salsa has become her passion – and she not only enjoys it in Latin America, but also in Bayreuth and the surrounding areas. In addition, drawing is an activity that helps Valerie to clear her mind.

“Sometimes I get up and know: now I need a red chalk pencil and paper. Then the picture almost draws itself. It comes from inside, I don’t plan that, you could almost close your eyes and the picture emerges. It is something that needs to get out”. 

A side project of Valerie Gruber, Diana Mignano, Gilbert Shang Ndi and Cláudio Manoel Duarte de Souza is their website “DjumbaiALA – Africa and Latin America in Dialogue”. And of course, a quiet spot like Bayreuth also invites to write articles or book chapters. 

But even though “you can find water, dance and life here”, Valerie is already looking forward to traveling back to the communities where it never gets boring.