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ORCID
CIÊNCIA VITAE

Ana Rita Alves

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ORCID
CIÊNCIA VITAE

Ana Rita Alves is an interdisciplinary scholar with a degree in Anthropology (2008), a master on Migrations, Inter-ethnicities and Transnationalism and a PhD on Human Rights in Contemporary Societies from the University of Coimbra (2023). Her engagement with different disciplines, such as anthropology, critical race theory or urban studies has been key to analyze entrenched processes of anti-black and anti-Roma political violence in Portugal, namely in the fields of epistemology, housing and justice, which resulted in numerous publications, namely the book “When Nobody Could Stay: Racism, Housing and Territory” (Tigre de Papel, 2021). 

Ana Rita was a 2020-2021 Black Studies Dissertation Scholar at the University of California Santa Barbara (USA). She has been involved in several research projects, including “COMBAT – Combating racism in Portugal: an analysis of public policies and anti-discrimination law” (FCT, 2016-2020) and “AFRO-PORT – Afro-descendants in Portugal: Sociability, Representations and Sociopolitical and Cultural Dynamics. A Study in the Lisbon Metropolitan Area'' (FCT, 2019-2021).

Her work has highly benefited from a close dialogue with grassroot collectives, generating unique epistemological insight and understanding of the daily consequences of anti-black and anti-Roma governmentalities in Portugal. This resulted in numerous initiatives, including processes of place-remaking and place-remembering, namely through the co-production of communitarian events, the co-curatorship of exhibitions and the co-authorship of storytelling regarding self-produced and rehousing neighborhoods. She is a founding member of CHÃO-Atelier of Urban Anthropology (2015), an academic outreach group committed to strengthening the relationship between academia and civil society. As a public intellectual, she has been participating in the national anti racist debate.

She is currently a researcher in the project "AGRRIN - Generative Bodies: From Aggression to Insurgency. Contributions to a Decolonial Pedagogy" (FCT, 2023-2026) at CeiED - Universidade Lusófona. She is also part of the team for the exploratory project "FILMASPORA - Popular Films in the Diaspora: Towards a New Cine-Geography of the Lisbon Metropolitan Area" (2023.11438.PEX) and is a Collaborating Researcher at the Centre for Social Studies (CES - University of Coimbra).

Áreas de interesse académico e científico Areas of academic and scientific interest

  • Critical Race Theory
  • Urban Studies
  • Anthropology of the State  

Publicações Selecionadas Selected Publications

  • Alves, A. R. (2025). Up Against the Wall: Disorganising and Silencing Political Blackness in Portugal. Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography. https://doi.org/10.1111/anti.13133
  • Alves, A. R. (2022). Portuguese urban studies: between race and the absence of racism. In N. K. H., & G. Picker, Giovanni (Eds.), Modernity, race and colonialism in European cities (pp. 192-212). Manchester University Press.
  • Alves, A. R. (2021). Quando Ninguém Podia Ficar: Racismo, Habitação e Território. Tigre de Papel.
  • Alves, A.R., & Maeso, S. R. (2021). A racialização do espaço pela mão da política local: anticiganismo, habitação e segregação territorial. In S. Maeso (Ed.), O Estado do Racismo em Portugal: Racismo antinegro e anticiganismo no direito e nas políticas públicas (pp. 157-180). Tinta da China.
  • Raposo, O., Alves, A. R., Varela, P., & Roldão, C. (2019). Negro Drama. Racismo, segregação e violência policial nas periferias de Lisboa. Revista Crítica de Ciências Sociais, 119, 5-28.