Born and raised in Recife, Pernambuco – Brazil, Kassandra lives in the southeast region of the country for many years, mainly in São Paulo and Minas Gerais. She specializes on researching performance, gender, ethnic-racial relationships and African and Afro-Brazilian culture.
Holds a graduate degree in literature from the Federal University of Pernambuco (UFPE), a Master and PhD in Linguistics at the State University of Campinas (Unicamp), focusing on performativities/performance and Cultural Studies. She completed her post-doctorate in Linguistics Applied to Education at the University of Brasília (UNB), being awarded, in 2005, by the IV Concurso Negro e Educação, promoted by Ação Educativa, ANPED and the Ford Foundation.
She’s currently an associate professor at the Literature Department of UFOP and coordinates the GT Identity Practices in Applied Linguistics of ANPOLL – National Association of Graduate Studies in Linguistics and Literature; she is also the leader of GELCI – Study Group on Languages, Cultures and Identities in this institution and member of the research group Language and Identity: pragmatic approaches / UNICAMP, both registered with CNPq.
Among her professional experiences stand out coordinations of the research committee in Human Sciences, Literatures and Arts (2011 – 2013); the NEABI – Center for Afro-Brazilian and indigenous studies at UFOP (2010-2014); the Center of Extension of the Human Sciences Institute (ICHS) of UFOP (2013-2015); the PIBID subproject African and Afro-Brazilian History, Literature and Culture – UFOP (10/2012 to 7/2017); and the adjunct coordination of the Specialization Course UNIAFRO / UFOP.
She’s also co-editor of the books Pedagogical Practices in the Promotion of Racial Equality (Brazil Publishing, 2017); Africanities: social and pedagogical practices (Brazil Publishing, 2017); Education as a Practice of Racial Equality at School (Mazza Edições, 2016); and, Thinking Africas and its Diasporas: contributions to the black Brazilian discussion (Nandyala, 2015). Author of magazine articles and book chapters dealing mostly with ethnic-racial relations, education and linguistics.
