Initiatives
Strengthening ideas, developing people’s capacities
Sephis strives to build fruitful dialogues between scholars, activists, research institutions and local intellectual communities. We are committed to encouraging the preservation, use and production of alternative historical sources as well as making their results accessible to broader audiences. This has led to a wide variety of outputs, from books, manuscripts, articles, catalogues, interviews, exhibitions, brochures, archives (oral history, photo, digital), databases, song book, to documentary films, and booklets. This is aligned to our mandate of strengthening ideas, forging capacities, developing people which aims to forge qualified, critical and engaged future-makers.
ICAS Book Prize
We are the oficial institution for the organizaton of the Spanish and Portuguese editions of the the ICAS Book Prize. By promoting scholarship on Asia published in these languages, SEPHIS aims to challenge traditional hierarchies regarding epistemological domains based on territorial divisions.
Webinar Series
With this webinar series, SEPHIS wants to carry out its historical role of being a platform for bringing together people investing in emerging and innovative ideas aimed at the promotion of real equality through science.
Workshops
Numerous research and writing workshops convened in Africa, Asia and Latin America brought together students for intensive training with prominent scholars. Many of those students and early-career researchers are now recognized scholars in various global institutions.
Individual Grants and Scholarships
Funding PhD students and Early career scholars has been one of our strong commitment with innovative research made by emerging scholars from the South. Beyond thesis monographs, the grantees outputs include books, films and artistic interventions.
Some of our partners
International Convention of Asia Scholars
Netherlands
Asociación Latinoamericana de Estudios de Asia y Africa
Latin America
Casa Asia
Spain
Circulating Knowledge, Connecting People
Although the South has been producing fine thought for a long time, the recognition of its contribution to the global stage is still hindered by unequal structures of knowledge circulation. Because ideas normally circulate unidirectionally, from the North to the South, Sephis has taken the challenge to promote a new engagement to knowledge production and circulation, South-South and South-North. Alongside the mobility of ideas, the circulation of scholars has been promoting the connection of sites, thoughts and publications that were normally insulated or appropriated without due credit. Through these tours we intended to reverse the logic of asymmetries of international academia and to contribute for intellectuals of peripheral regions to have access to knowledge produced in other peripheries, strengthening networks for dialogue within the Global South. Intellectuals have been circulating in continents other than their own, for faculty exchange or lecture tours sponsoring the move of dozens of researchers from over 70 different countries, in more than 130 conferences, translated and published into 7 different languages.
Partha Chatterjee
Columbia University, USA - Leading historian of modernity, Partha Chatterjee was one of our first Lecture Tour speakers and authors published by Sephis as early as the 1990s. The first translations of his work into Portuguese were supported by SEPHIS.
María Emma Mannarelli
Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, Peru - Her contributions to the field of gender studies have played a key role in Peru since the early 1990s. She was awarded a postdoctoral grant in the late 1990s.
Paulo Fontes
Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil - Paulo Fontes is a recognised historian of labour and an intellectual engaged with social movements in Brazil. He was awarded a postdoctoral grant in 2009.
Yasmeen Arif
Shiv Nadar University, India - Violence, crisis, subjectivities, the city, and epistemology compose a multifaceted span of research interests for Yasmeen Arif. She was awarded a PhD grant in the 1990s.
Some of our partners
Centre for Studies in Social Sciences
India
Centro de Estudos Afro-Orientais
Brazil
Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa
Senegal
Mobility of Thought, Translation of Ideas
The circulation of ideas depends on often unbalanced structural conditions for publishing and distributing, not to mention the predominance of the English language. Where and by what publisher one is published matters in the reception and recognition of knowledge. This is why Sephis has been translating and editing a large number of important publications from relevant scholars, in partnership with different editors from the South and North. We promote the mobility of ideas across regions, mitigating the impact of the unbalanced circulation of knowledge. Publications include articles, monographs, edited volumes, booklets, occasional papers, and lecture tours. Our editorial initiatives funded more than 300 publications, more than 80 books in 7 different languages, including: English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Indonesian, Spanish, Persian, and Arabic. We are very proud of our editorial partnerships in Europe, Latin America, and Asia.
Publications
We have funded hundreds of books on South-related topics such as alternatives modernities, labour history, academic dependency, nationalism, development, and subalternity. Our partners include publishers such as Oxford India, Manohar, Karthala, Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, and EDUFBA.
Translations
We are convinced that translation plays a key role in how ideas circulate and are appropriated. This is why SEPHIS supported the first translations of Subaltern Studies into Portuguese and Spanish and continued, after that, to invest in multilingual publications. Many of our Lecture Tours are available in two or even three languages.
