THE TECHNICAL-ADMINISTRATIVE STAFF AS AGENTS OF INSTITUTIONAL TRANSFORMATION: UNIVERSITY EXTENSION, ANTI-RACIST EDUCATION, AND SOCIAL POLICIES IN DISPUTE

Abstract

This chapter reports the experience of the Ciclo Permanente de Atividades de Educação Antirracista (CPAEA), a university extension project at the Universidade Federal de Pelotas (UFPel), coordinated and executed by an Education Administrative Technician (TAE). The study is configured as a qualitative experience report, based on institutional records, participant observation and documentary analysis. The research argues that the technical-administrative civil servant can occupy a position as an agent of institutional transformation, and not just operational support, when their practice is informed by critical training and political commitment. The analysis articulates three dimensions: the anti-racist extension practice built within CPAEA; the academic training at master's level in social policies and human rights; and the normative and theoretical framework structuring public higher education in Brazil. The analysis draws on Black thought and decolonial theories, especially Nilma Lino Gomes, Frantz Fanon, bell hooks and Audre Lorde, to situate CPAEA's practice within the disputes that cross the contemporary Brazilian public university. The results show that the TAE's institutional position, frequently subordinated within the university structure, can be reoccupied as a site of political and pedagogical enunciation. It is concluded that the articulation between extension practice and academic training constitutes a condition for the full exercise of public function committed to confronting structural racism.