Vanicléia Silva Santos

Vanicleia Silva Santos was born in Bahia, Brazil. She has a PhD in history from the University of São Paulo (USP). Her research focuses on the History of Africa and its diasporas.. She has worked on the curation of exhibitions in the United States and Brazil. She is the curator of the African Collection at the Penn Museum of the University of Pennsylvania (UPENN); is a lecturer in the Department of Africana Studies. Before moving to the United States, she was Associate Professor of African History at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (2010 to 2022), where she continues to supervise Master's and Doctoral students. Silva-Santos serves as a member of the UNESCO International Scientific Committee for Phase Two of the General History of Africa. She is the editor of Volume 10 of the General History of Africa, this important volume was published in 2023 and addresses the history and relationships between Africa and its diasporas around the world.
==Education==
In 1998, Silva Santos graduated in History from the State University of Bahia (UNEB-Jacobina). In 2001. She completed her MA in History at the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo (PUC/SP), with an MA thesis on “Sounds, Dances and Rhythms: A Micareta in Jacobina, Bahia (1920-1950)”SANTOS, V. S.. SONS DANÇAS E RITMOS: A MICARETA DE JACOBINA (1920-1950). 2001. (Apresentação de Trabalho/Comunicação).. In 2008, she completed her doctorate in Social History at the University of São Paulo (USP). Her dissertation is entitled “Bolsas de Mandinga no Espaço Atlântico-Séculos XV-XVIII”, under the guidance of Professor Marina de Mello e Souza. This text has become a foundational reference for this area of historical research.
==Academic Career==
Professor Silva Santos has worked in institutions in various parts of the world with long tenures in Brazil and the United States of America. From 2004 to 2007, she worked as a researcher and educator at the Afro-Brazil Museum in São Paulo. This experience allowed her to develop her research on the history of African and the African diaspora artistic production. The Afro-Brazil Museum led to her curatorial work, and her historical research and museum education. She served as a visiting professor at the State University of Tocantins (2002-2003), State University of Bahia (2009-2010), and the Universidad de Buenos Aires in Argentina (2014). From 2010 to 2022, she was a professor in the Department of History at UFMG, teaching African History, and serving as Director of the Center for African Studies (CEA/UFMG). In 2018, she became an Associate Professor at UFMG. In late 2019, she joined the University of Pennsylvania.
Silva Santos coordinated projects that have focused on the History of Africa and the diasporas at the universities where she has worked. At UNEB she led projects on “The inquisition in the backlands of Bahia in the 18th century” (2009), and on “The inquisition in Angola, 16th to 18th centuries” (2012). These projects studied the Portuguese Inquisition in relation to religious practices of Central African peoples inside and outside Africa, in the context of the insertion of Christianity in the region. In 2015 she received a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Texas-Austin, where she continued researching original manuscripts on the Portuguese inquisition of the Mandinga. At UFMG, she led a Research Project on the History of International Relations between Brazil and Mozambique (2013-2014). She also coordinated, together with José da S. Horta (University of Lisbon), the bilateral project “Production, Circulation and Use of African Ivories in the Atlantic Area between the 15th and 19th Centuries (2014-2021)
Her work has advanced the decolonization of university and research spaces. Professor Silva Santos encourages the production of research that considers global, international and transnational perspectives, in addition to focusing on approaches that do not lose “sight of the link between academic research and social and civic engagement”. She has been involved in organizations that help promote knowledge beyond the walls of academia and promote other ways of research. From 2012 and 2014, Professor Silva Santos was Vice-President of the Brazilian Association of Black Researchers (ABPN). Between 2012 and 2022, she served as secretary of the Brazilian Association of African Studies (ABE-ÁFRICA). Since 2018, she has coordinated the research group “Africas: history, politics and culture" (UFMG/CNPq). From 2014 to 2018, she promoted several large-scale national and international scientific dissemination events, seeking to strengthen institutional exchange through scientific research projects, courses, and cooperation agreements. The events were attended by Brazilian, European, North American and African intellectuals. In 2017, she led the creation of the “African Studies Collection” at the UFMG Central Library.
In addition to academic productions, Silva Santos also aims, through public history, to communicate his research and knowledge with the non-academic public through texts, interviews, and exhibitions. As a public historian, Silva Santos’ work has been published in newspapers (Folha de São Paulo, O Tempo, Correio 24 Horas, Estado de Minas), TV programs (Rede Minas, TV Globo, Jornal Hoje em Dia, TV Record), radio programs ( Rádio Educativa UFMG, Rádio Itatiaia, Rádio Assembleia Minas Gerais, Rádio Diafar/Argentina) and the magazines O Menelick 2o Ato, Galileu and Ciência Hoje. She curated visual arts exhibitions in São Paulo: “200 Years of Brazilian Independence in Bahia” at the Afro-Brazil Museum (2023) and Belo Horizonte: “Africa and its diasporas in Jorge dos Anjos”, Escola Dom Helder’s Pavilion (2018); “Minas - África é Aqui” (2016), Marfins em Minas Gerais, co-authored with Renata Diório (2016); “Owiwi Meji- Two Visions, One Identity [Nigeria and Brazil] at the Inimá de Paula Museum (2012); “A Narrative of Sister Nations - Nigeria and Brazil” at the Institute of Yoruba Art and Culture (2012). And also African cinema exhibitions: “First African Film Festival: Ousmane Sembene” at UNEB-Itaberaba (2009); “Mozambican Cinema Exhibition: Licínio Azevedo” at UFMG, Belo Horizonte (2014); and “7th Spring of Museums”: UFMG Knowledge Space, Belo Horizonte (2009).
==Research==
With a career based on interdisciplinarity, Silva Santos' research focuses on the centrality of material culture in African societies and the diaspora. Her research uses various types of colonial sources and archives, including Portuguese Holy Office manuscripts, letters, European and African records, oral history, images, maps, museum artifacts and archaeological sites. Silva-Santos's research agenda is to understand how African knowledge has shaped the lives of black people in Africa and its diaspora. Among her main contributions to Africanist studies is her most recent performance at the Penn Museum (University of Pennsylvania). Her work at the Penn Museum offers the public a new way of curating museums, objects and narratives by critically reviewing the archives and words of Western historical narratives.
Category:People from Bahia
Category:Brazilian people
Category:University of São Paulo alumni