Kaleidoscopio: Research in Public Policy and Culture

Operating since 2012, the organization was founded by an anthropologist a media professional and a musician and event manager. The point of departure was the idea that academic knowledge could be better communicated to society and policy makers. As the organization evolved, this perspective has come to influence the methods we conceptualize and share the results of our research projects. Kaleidoscopio had the particularity of bringing together a generation of young scholars. While this allowed for a proliferation of innovative research projects and their dissemination, this group of scholars and professionals did not have a reputation to attract the desired funding for its projects. Through consultancy research and the use of international networks of its members Kaleidoscopio grew to a point in which it could make itself visible through the work of its individual members and a limited number of public events. Now Kaleidoscopio is developing research projects in partnership with universities in South Africa, United States and England. Kaleidoscopio has also been awarded two grants. The first grant was awarded by the Swiss Development Cooperation to co-implement with institution in South Africa and Zimbabwe a project called “The Social life of Waste-Art. This project is in its third and final year. The second grant was awarded by the Toyota Foundation to implement a project titled “Cooking history: Food Receipts and Heritage in Mozambique.” This is a one year project which will end in 2018. While both projects are based on traditional academic research with results to be shared in the form of peer reviewed publications, the key outputs are public workshops, fairs and multi-genre publications that will take the knowledge produced to broader publics.

Kaleidoscopio’s research work is based on three broad themes that integrate different projects. Below is a short description of these themes: Politics of affect The idea of development is often seen as the result of rational and instrumental processes. In this paradigm, there is little room for understanding the symbolic and affective dimension of economic and political processes that lead to development. By focusing on public acts of state representatives and actors in development processes, this line of research is devoted to the analysis of political representation at the same time that it seeks to document the voices of the beneficiaries of these public acts expressed in art form. Today’s heritage This project explores and documents elements of tangible and intangible culture legally recognized as part of the Mozambican cultural heritage. It investigates the limits of existing models of classification and recognition in light of everyday practices in contemporary Mozambique. Choreographies of intimacy Our concern with social inequalities and human rights often leads us to emphasize how human relations are socially constructed. In the course of these political struggles there is a silence about the crafting of interpersonal interactions in intimate practices. This research line analyses dimensions of intimacy centered on the human body – a site where pleasures, political and economic projects are imagined and materialized.