Advancing Sociology in Portuguese-Speaking African Countries (PALOPs): Perspectives and Challenges

Abstract

This paper highlights some of the challenges faced by the Portuguese-speaking African Countries (PALOPs) to consolidate Sociology as a relevant area of knowledge, both at university and school level. For this purpose, we will rely on part of the scarce existing bibliography on the subject, as well as on interviews with African teachers and students. Decolonial thinking inspires the elaboration of this article, as it criticizes the perspective of the modernity of knowledge solely linked to Eurocentric or American thinking. In these young countries, the university and this field of knowledge are new and lack institutionalization. The lack of investment by the State, the precarious structure, the difficulty of academic cooperation, the persistence of a strong coloniality in the production of knowledge and linguistic obstacles further complicate the process. It is important to seek synergy between countries, with exchanges of experiences and international cooperation - including Brazil - and also between professors and students in the struggle for the consolidation of the discipline.