Prof Leny Trad

I have been coordinating the Integrated Program (research, teaching and extension) Community, Family and Health (FASA) at the Institute of Collective Health of the Federal University of Bahia (ISC/ UFBA) since 1999. On the one hand, our studies address the experiences, practices and meanings of community and family members associated with health, disease and care. On the other hand, the socio-cultural contexts and public policies that affect these processes. The commitment to the democratization of knowledge, confrontation of social and racial inequalities and construction of partnerships based on dialogic relations are values that I have helped to instigate in the FASA.

In 2005, the locus of my research migrated from health services to territories and family daily life, with a foucs on ethnographic work and community-based research. Since then, I have concentrated my research on the following topics: Therapeutic Itineraries, Chronicity and Integral Care; Race, ethnicity and health; Vulnerability, Social Protection and Health; Social Activism and Public Policy; Health Negligence Production. Regarding my teaching experience, particularly in postgraduate, I highlight the following subjects: Social Theories in Health; Health, Culture and Society; Methodological seminars in social sciences and health; Contemporary health ethnography; The use of photography in research; Introduction to Global Health.

Throughout my career in research and teaching I have experimented with different approaches (theoretical and methodological) that favour the encounter with multiple alterities (popular class families, health professionals, community leaders, religious leaders), young blacks, health activists, people living with chronic illnesses, students of the humanities or health, etc.) that such practices provide. More recently, inspired by the ecology of knowledges as well as the decolonialism/postcolonialism perspectives, I wish to advance in the construction of an ethnic-political framework that favors the production of more sensitive and powerful relations between science and society.

My travels through other countries, notably through academic internships and teaching experiences, allowed me to demystify any idea of intellectual hierarchy in the relationship between central and peripheral countries, and to develop my knowledge on topics of interest and knowing other academic cultures. The opportunities offered in the following spaces were very fertile: Faculdad de Sociologia da Universidad de Barcelona (Phd 1991-1996); Département d’Anthropologie (Université de Montréal, 2002); Universidad Nacional de Colombia (2003); Centre de Richerche en Anthropologie (Université Lumiere, 2006); Universidad de Lannus (Argentina, 2006-2010); Centro Studi e Ricerche in Salute Internazionale e Interculturale (Universidade de Bologna); Department of Black and Latino Studies (Baruch College, CUNY, 2014) and Brooklyn Health Disparaties Center (2014).

I belong to a strong women’s lineage from northeastern Brazil. After studying in a religious school, taking part in a political organization and other transitional affiliations, I am sure that I am not going to follow gurus, even religious, political and intellectual leaders. Beside this, the transit between epistemologies and diverse knowledge has always attracted me (psychoanalysis, anthropology, public health, etc.). I believe that these elements, added to my career, motivated me to participate in ECLIPSE.