The CES of Coimbra one more time

Text by Isabel Allegro Magalhães, well-known Portuguese intellectual and Full Professor of the New University of Lisbon (retired). The publication of this text was refused by two important  newspapers Expresso and Público, showing the biasis of the Portuguese media against Professor Boaventura de Sousa Santos.

There has always been, and certainly there will always be, envy and jealousy, conflicts and disagreements, both minor and serious, between colleagues from all universities, just as it has always happened among many other professionals in any field. There has always been a desire for power and the will to destroy those who have it. There has always been ill will towards those who are superior, who are better qualified or with a natural tendency towards excellence... Unfortunately, this is particularly true in various contexts in our country, with the political field possibly being the most notorious.

Feminisms as well – so important before for the emancipation of women, which is still ongoing anyway – have recently lost some significance. The fight for equal rights, among the ever-widening range of sexual options and sexed forms of bodies, has marginalized the battle for women's rights. And movements such as the #MeToo emerging a few years ago in the USA, which at first seemed to be fighting for equal rights between the sexes, have accomplished – in various cultural and scientific spaces, here and in other countries – what in Mexico is called voltear la tortilla, which in this case means replacing male domination over women by female domination over men, instead of seeking real parity between the sexes.

This is what I think is happening in Coimbra, at CES – Center for Social Studies and Human Sciences (the only one in Europe with such a scope). With regard to what I know about what has happened and what is happening, two things worry me at the moment.

On the one hand, the intention, expressed by some recent PhD students or researchers at the Center, to defame its founder: Boaventura Sousa Santos. This defamation began with an accusation written on the walls of the Center itself, which was then amplified when three researchers signed a denunciation of the founding professor, as well as other researchers they considered to be his connivers. They managed to get this defamation published in book form, in a well-known English publishing house: Routledge (which shortly afterwards acknowledged the error of publishing what was in fact a defamation by withdrawing the text from the book). The accusation took off in several directions, spreading internationally, even though it lacked (and still does) serious grounds and substantial evidence. The purpose, which seems to be vindictive for various reasons, some of which may be of a work-related nature, is the academic and personal destruction of an internationally recognized, admired and followed social scientist, whose CV clearly proves it, as well as – and even more so – the destruction of the high scientific level of CES itself (something that the accusers, who consider themselves only “victims”, have probably not yet realized). The fact is that this Center has earned national and international admiration and respect, having become (as far as I know) the largest European research center in these areas and one of the few considered to be of excellence. For this very reason, it has been the most highly rated and the most well-funded – something that has also provoked some resentment among us outside the institution.

On the other hand, the fact that an accusation made by these means has been put on hold for two years, without the accused being able to defend himself and show his evidence – which totally contradicts the libel – with the case continuing without formal charges or, of course, a trial – which is astonishing.

Boaventura Sousa Santos is in his mid-80s, this incrimination was launched at the end of his life, as if to obscure the brilliance of his scientific and academic career.

I worked in at CES (associated Laboratory) for five years, with Boaventura and a large group of researchers, men and women, on one of his many projects. I sat on juries for prizes in the Social Sciences and Humanities for ten years (with Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo, Sérgio Adorno (from Brazil), Teresa Cruz e Silva (from Mozambique), Fernando Gil, Manuel Vilaverde Cabral).

And what one of the accusing researchers seems to boast about is unthinkable: that she herself invented the theory of “the epistemologies of the South”, for which Boaventura has been known and admired internationally for so long. It's laughable... And if the reference to him being a “womanizer” cannot be denied, not even by himself, the accusation that he is an “abuser” and a “rapist” is another matter altogether, and there doesn't seem to be any proof of this other than the invented ones.

Perhaps some of the women who have been and are still today researchers at CES really want to turn the tables, in line with the current #MeToo moment, so that they, and those who agree with them, can be in charge of the institution. We will see later, certainly with regret, the future of the scientific quality of this institution.

A very strong sign that we have already witnessed was the self-dismissal from CES of some of the biggest names in academia, men and women of the greatest competence, creativity and human quality, who had been working at CES for many years.

Justice needs now to speed up its investigation in order to uncover the truth and make it known. Without mercy. With the clarity of its independence – which today in Portugal is by no means guaranteed... That's what I want: for the sake of truth, ethics, science and a genuine parity between the sexes.

Isabel Allegro de Magalhães

(Full Professor at the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences- NOVA University of Lisbon. Retired)