MaCTRI Summer School 2026: Global Decolonial Perspectives
MaCTRI hosts the Highlights from the MaCTRI Summer School 2026
Making Education a Priority (MEaP) and the Manchester Community Training & Research Institute (MaCTRI) were proud to host the MaCTRI Summer School 2026, marking another landmark moment in international academic collaboration and community-grounded research.
Building on the foundation laid by last year’s successful event—the MaCTRI Summer School 2025—this year’s session deepened our international ties and expanded our commitment to decolonial research and practice.
An International Decolonial Exchange at MaCTRI Summer School 2026
Hosted at Luther King House, Manchester (and accessible globally via Zoom online conferencing) and occasionally at 1 Brow House Mabfield Road, Manchester M14 on 25th September 2026, postgraduate master’s and PhD researchers joined us for the International Decolonial Exchange Project – Summer School 2026.
For the second year running, MaCTRI hosted the UK arm of the Abdias Nascimento Academic Development Program—a collaborative initiative articulating the Postgraduate Programme in Psychology (PPGPSI) and Postgraduate Programme in Education (PPGE) at the Federal University of Amazonas (UFAM), alongside the Postgraduate Programme in Education (PPGE) at the Federal University of Mato Grosso (UFMT) and researchers from MaCTRI (Greater Manchester, UK).
Master’s and PhD students from the PPGPSI and PPGE/UFAM participated in the International Decolonial Exchange Project – Summer School 2026, in Manchester, sharing research, experiences and knowledge from an international and decolonial perspective.
Supported by PROPESP, NEAB/UFAM, and funded by CAPES under the Abdias Nascimento Academic Development Program, this partnership provided a vital transatlantic platform to share research, lived experiences, and academic knowledge through a critical decolonial lens.
Objectives of the MaCTRI Summer School 2026
In this phase of institutional collaboration, the summer school focused on three key pillars:
- Higher Education Access and Resilience: Enabling Brazilian PhD and Master’s students to conduct research on UK policies surrounding Higher Education access, helping Black and Indigenous students in Brazil build ongoing resilience strategies using UK scholarly and community networks as inspiration.
- Hybrid Exchange and Decolonial Epistemologies: Developing multifocal exchange experiences through joint hybrid courses that connect visiting Brazilian graduate students with scholars at MaCTRI and extended community networks across Manchester, Luton, and London. This contributes directly to a decolonial praxis that honors Black and Indigenous epistemologies and ancestral heritages, dovetailing with MaCTRI’s decolonial doctoral publishing programme.
- Internationalisation and Academic Mobility: Strengthening Brazilian graduate programmes through scholarships, mobility, and international cooperation between research groups, advancing the inclusion and intellectual production of Black and Indigenous Amazonian students.
Key Highlights of the Exchange
During the summer school session, postgraduate scholars and community researchers engaged in dynamic knowledge-exchange sessions focused on:
- Decolonial Research Methodologies: Examining research frameworks that center Indigenous, Afro-descendant, and grass-roots community perspectives across Latin America and the UK.
- Cross-Cultural Knowledge Sharing: Comparing academic and activist practices to address historical inequalities in education and social research.
- International Solidarity & Research: Strengthening collaborative networks between UK community research institutes like MaCTRI and public university programmes in Brazil.
Each of the postgraduate participants presented their own research.
Who participated in the MaCTRI summer school 2026?
The MaCTRI summer school 2026 brought together postgraduate master’s and doctoral researchers from UFAM and UFMT traveling from Brazil. Visiting researchers presented ground-breaking work crossing psychological, educational, and sociological boundaries:
- Cani Alves (PPGPSI/UFAM) – Presentation title: Ballroom Events in Amazonia: lived experiences in Northern Brazil
- Rosemary Alves (PPGPSI/UFAM) – Presentation title: When the River Crosses the Ocean: Experience of Mobility, Belonging and Ccare between the Amazon and the Manchester.
- Rosiane Barbosa (PPGE/UFAM) – Presentation title: The control of Black students in military programmes: what British and Brazilian News Say.
- Kusu Biti (MaCTRI) – Presentation title: Reawakening Kindezi: The Art of Communal Childcare.
- Gabriela Oliveira Cattebeke (PPGPSI/UFAM) – Presentation title: From university to work: experiences of deaf immigrants and strategies to occupation identify in Higher Education in the UK
- Fabiane Rodrigues Fonseca (PPGPSI/UFAM) – Presentation title: Care, Black Motherhoods, and Quilombamento in the Diaspora: Psychological Dialogues between the Amazonian Quilombola Territory and the United Kingdom
- Renan Guerra (PPGPSI/UFAM) – Presentation title: Afrodiasporic Ancestry: Implication of Ancestry in the Development of Black Students’ Trajectories.
- Jacqueline A. Hinds (MaCTRI) – Presentation title: Who’s Experience? Understanding Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) Through Gender, Race and Faith
- Júlia Gabriella Alexandre Mota (PPGE/UFAM) – Presentation title: Black Childhoods in the Educational Research: epistemological aquilombamento between Brazil and the United Kingdom
- Eduardo Azevedo Rebouças (PPGPSI/UFAM) – Presentation title: A Comparative Analysis of Perpetrator Intervention Systems in Brazil and the United Kingdom
- Ruth Shuttleworth (MaCTRI) – Presentation title: The work of the English department – a presentation about the practical application of Ubuntu pedagogy in the online teaching of GCSE English
Academic leads, community researchers, advocates and practitioners dedicated to decolonial education and international research development, and scholars from MaCTRI in Manchester, UFAM and UFMT particularly included Prof. Iolete Ribeiro PhD (PPGPSI and PPGE/UFAM) who coordinates the Dabacuri and Aquilombamento projects alongside Dr Ornette D Clennon, Head of MaCTRI, MaCTRI Coordinator and academic supervisor of the Dabacuri and Aquilombamento projects.
Reflecting on the Event
As the MaCTRI summer school 2026 has now drawn to a close, Dr Ornette D Clennon and MaCTRI extend our heartfelt gratitude to our visiting scholars, institutional partners, and funders who made this exchange possible.To view photos, videos, and highlights recorded during the event, you can view the official post directly on Instagram below:
The overarching goal of this leg of the programme was to harness UK grassroots decolonial praxis to inspire methods that combat epistemic racism generated by traditional curricula and research practices that exclude Black, Indigenous, and Latin American critical knowledge.
Looking ahead, the planned second leg of the project will see MaCTRI’s scholars and community partners visit communities in the Mato Grosso and Amazonian regions to gain firsthand insight into their grassroots decolonial practices.
Sources & Event Links
Instagram Media & Coverage: International Decolonial Exchange Project – Summer School 2026 on Instagram – created by the Braziian students!
View this post on Instagram
All pictures come from that video.