Utterances in Dispute: Institutional Language and Black Representativeness in the Scientific Field

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this paper¹ is to investigate how the institutional utterances produced by a public university in the state of Mato Grosso, in response to racial inclusion policies, shape the presence of black researchers in the scientific field. The institution was selected because it reflects national patterns of racial underrepresentation in research, serving as an empirical locus for analyzing broader structural processes. The investigation combines documentary analysis, a quantitative survey of the racial composition of the scientific workforce from 2000 to 2024, and qualitative data from a focus group, supported by the approach of Dialogic Discourse Analysis. The findings indicate that, by failing to explicitly incorporate racial equity as a structuring principle, the institutional utterances that regulate research policy contribute to the discursive and material reproduction of black underrepresentation in scientific production and coordination, thereby compromising the effectiveness of affirmative actions.

KEYWORDS:
Affirmative Action; Racial Inequality; Scientific Research; Dialogic Analysis; Institutional Policies

RESUMO

Este artigo¹ tem como objetivo investigar de que modo os enunciados institucionais produzidos por uma universidade pública de Mato Grosso, em resposta às normativas de inclusão racial, configuram a presença de pesquisadores negros no campo científico. A instituição foi selecionada por refletir padrões nacionais de sub-representação racial na pesquisa, operando como recorte empírico para análise de processos estruturais mais amplos. A investigação articula análise documental, levantamento quantitativo da composição racial do corpo científico no período de 2000 a 2024 e dados qualitativos provenientes de grupo focal, orientando-se pela abordagem da Análise Dialógica do Discurso. Os resultados indicam que, ao não incorporarem explicitamente a equidade racial como princípio estruturante, os enunciados institucionais que normatizam a política de pesquisa contribuem para a reprodução discursiva e material da sub-representação negra na produção e na coordenação científica, comprometendo a efetividade das ações afirmativas.

PALAVRAS-CHAVE:
Ação afirmativa; Desigualdade racial; Pesquisa científica; Análise dialógica; Políticas institucionais

Introduction

In the past decades, the debate about the presence of black subjects in the Brazilian academic environments has increasingly been placed at the center, due to the implementation of affirmative action policies and to the need to face historically produced, naturalized inequalities. However, the institutionalization of these policies reveals a persistent mismatch between legal provisions and institutional practices that regulate the entrance, the permanence and the visibility of black public servants at university, especially those connected to scientific production. In this context, it is imperative to analyze how institutions discursively formulate and materialize their responses to legal provisions, as the limits and the potentialities of structural transformation - of the Brazilian scientific sphere - become intelligible in the scope of utterances.

The study presented herein, financed by the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico [National Council for Scientific and Technological Development] (CNPq), in partnership with the Ministério da Igualdade Racial [Ministry of Racial Equity], is inserted in such scenery. This Ministry examines forms of institutional responsiveness to legislation directed towards promoting racial equity in the scientific field. A public university in the state of Mato Grosso has been used as an empirical case. By adopting this focus, we aim at filling a gap in literature and also at problematizing the concrete conditions to include black researchers in the university structure. We start from the comprehension that augmenting racial diversity in science is more than a normative goal - it is a requirement which is indispensable for scientific advancement and for constructing a more equitable and fairer society. Therefore, it is essential to investigate the ways of addressing, justifying and representing the racial issue in the institutional scope, in order to understand how such agenda is incorporated (or limited) into the process of research management.

The main question posed herein is: how do institutional utterances - produced in response to legal provisions regarding racial inclusion - impact the presence and visibility of black subjects in science? We depart from the assumption that these utterances are permeated with political-ideological tensions, which modulate different forms of institutional responsiveness, varying from partial adherence to resistance to affirmative action policies. These disputes, materialized in official discourses, help explain the persistence of the underrepresentation of black researchers in the analyzed institution.

The examination articulates legal with institutional utterances, complemented by qualitative data from focus groups and by quantitative data from the mapping of black researchers at the university under study. Methodologically, the investigation is sustained by Bakhtin’s dialogic perspective of language, propelling discussions of inclusion policies, affirmative actions, structural racism and historical inequalities, with the purpose to perceive how the institution discursively responds to legal and social requirements, regarding racial equity.

This paper has four sections, besides the introduction. The first one presents the theoretical framework that supports studies on race, structural inequalities and language. The second one describes the methodology adopted. The third one analyses the legal provisions that orient racial policies and their implications for public institutions. The fourth one looks into institutional utterances and their forms of responsiveness. At last, the final considerations synthetize the findings and propose guidelines for the insertion of racial equity into research policies.

1 Theoretical Foundation for the Analyses of Official and Institutional Utterances: Race, Structural Inequality and Language

Brazil is widely known for its ethnic-cultural diversity, resulting from historical processes of contact, conflict and miscegenation among indigenous, African and European peoples. Nevertheless, such plurality has been repeatedly obscured by a tradition that has silenced racial relations, which may be understood in light of theories that address domination, cultural hegemony and reproduction of inequalities. The invisibilization of racial asymmetries functions as a mechanism that maintains social order and, hence, contributes to the naturalization of historically constructed hierarchies. According to Gomes, Brandão and Madeira (2020), racial inequality in Brazil is structural and is manifested through multiple dimensions of social life. It profoundly affects the black population, who remains disadvantaged in economic, educational and professional realms.

Within this framework, the conduction of educational research directed towards racial relations, towards exclusion processes and towards appreciation of ethnic-cultural diversity has played a central role in strengthening claims for social and civic rights. Besides expanding public debate, these initiatives uphold the formulation and implementation of equity-oriented public policies. Affirmative actions - conceived as tools to face structural racism and promote inclusion in educational institutions, in public service and in other areas of Brazilian society - are consolidated in these actions.

As far as employment is concerned, Alves and Galeão-Silva (2004) attest that, since the mid-1990s, the Brazilian State has been making more systematic efforts to fight racial discrimination. Lei n.º 12.990/2014 [Law No. 12,990/2014] is among the provisions that express such efforts. It established a 20% quota for black people in entrance/ pre-employment exams for federal public service. In addition, the more recent Lei n.º 15.142/2025 [Law No. 15.142/2025] increased quotas from 20% to 30% for black, brown, indigenous and quilombola people.² Although the latter legislation does not encompass the time covered for the data analyzed herein - which considers the period until December 2024 -, its enactment reveals the current situation and the expansion of the debate about racial equity in public service.

These advances represent political accomplishments which have resulted from historical integration among social movements, especially black movements and organizations of the working class, as attested by Gonzalez (2019) and other scholars. Policies towards education and towards admittance to public service, in these terms, cannot be understood as products which are exclusive to bureaucratic instances. Instead, they should be seen as the results of disputes among social forces existing within the state structure. We call attention to the intervention that ensured that Lei n.º 12.990/2014 adopted racial criteria exclusively, among the progresses made by black movements, whose claims are prior to the 1988 Constitution. Such Law differs from Lei n.º 12.711/2012 [Law No. 12.711/2012], which associates the access to federal universities with socioeconomic criteria connected with school trajectories in public institutions (Brasil, 2012).

However, it is important to point out that facing structural racism is not limited to expanding the presence of black people in spaces that have been historically selective. Specialized literature shows that affirmative actions should also revise institutional mechanisms of power, which produce and reproduce inequalities through time. Even though they represent a relevant mark, actions like Lei n.º 12.990/2014 face significant limits in their implementation, including discriminatory practices in screening processes and in institutional daily routine, which configure forms of symbolic and material violence. These forms of violence - sometimes subtle and other times explicit - frame social relations marked by inequality and are reproduced both in the ideational sphere and in practice, as they are supported by stereotyped representations that naturalize difference as hierarchy.

Seeing violence as a historical mechanism of control and domination enables the problematization of socially constituted categories based on race, gender and sexuality. The institution of difference as inequality, according to critical studies, remains a persistent form of materialized violence, which is able to sustain racist, sexist and homophobic practices, updated and legitimized in contemporary social organization. These processes reveal the intensity of racial inequality in Brazil and the constant need for policies and examinations that confront the mechanisms which reproduce it.

In order to discuss diversity, representativeness and insertion of black researchers in the academic milieu, in a society permeated with structural racism, we consider language as a central analytical axis. Dialogic discourse analysis, based on Bakhtin’s theory (Brait, 2008), offers instruments that are consistent to understand how certain discursive dynamics frame, stabilize and legitimize forms of power. From such viewpoint, the formulations on diversity and inclusion are not neutral descriptions of reality, but discursive practices oriented by social values. These values may reproduce exclusion systems and construct appearance of change as well. Language, as social practice, does not solely communicate institutional decisions; it organizes world views, regulates belongings and institutes symbolic frontiers. Consequently, certain discourses on representativeness may operate in such a way as to conceal processes that maintain inequalities, producing a mere formal diversity, dissociated from structural transformations, unable to promote the effective inclusion of black and brown people.

Bakhtin conceives language as an arena of struggles among evaluative conflicts and a space for forming identities, social relations and forms of action. The “basic unit for the study of actual speech practice is the utterance” (Bakhtin, 1986, p. xvi),³ deemed as a situated verbal expression, imbued with sociohistorical conditions and with the intentions of subjects involved. This comprehension moves analyses from an abstract place to the materiality of speech practices, in which meanings are disputed and reconfigured. By articulating utterances with historicity and with social relations, the dialogic perspective enables the apprehension that institutional discourses, especially those produced by the State or by universities, carry evaluative marks revealing political and ideological positions.

Accordingly, dialogic discourse analysis cannot be limited to “the abstract linguistic system” nor to “the individual psyche of speakers,” as Vološinov (1973, p. 95)⁴ theorizes. It should take into account the sociohistorical ideological dimension that pervades all speech practices. The word, as an ideological product, is always the expression of a dispute among social values; it emerges from a context and is directed towards concrete addressees, establishing a live dialogue between diverse positions (Campos; Leite, 2021). Therefore, legal and institutional documents cannot be deemed as neutral or self-referential utterances, as they are embedded with lexical choices, silences, emphases and compositional arrangements that take part in the production of meanings of race, inclusion and inequality. Reducing them to mere linguistic forms would entail striping them of their complex ideological and political dimension.

Another fundamental aspect of this study refers to the perception that when utterances emerge, they are always permeated with responsive attitudes, as each word responds to other words and anticipates new answers. The relation between understanding and responsiveness, pursuant to Bakhtin’s theory (1986),⁵ entails the acknowledgment that interpreting speech is not only decoding its content, but assuming an active position towards the utterance of the other. Such position is always axiological - the addressee understands by evaluating, agreeing, disagreeing or even expressing an indifferent response. This dynamic is established simultaneously with the utterance, configuring a continuous dialogic process in which meanings are constantly re-elaborated.

By considering utterance as an evaluative position, we acknowledge that the speaker’s voice incorporates, puts a strain on or reinterprets other voices, making them resonate different ideological tones. Vološinov (1973)⁶ affirms that evaluation is concretely manifested in intonation, in lexical selection and in compositional organization of speech. Ergo, analyzing the utterances produced by the State and by the university entails examining not only the explicit content, but also the discursive choices that configure specific ways to perceive and represent black presence in science. These choices are not random; they reflect structured world views, orient institutional practices and contribute to maintaining or challenging racial hierarchies.

Thus, comprehending discourses on diversity in the academic-scientific milieu demands going beyond superficial analyses that are limited to what is directly uttered. It is also necessary to look into silences, absences, non-responses and erasures. Vološinov (1973)⁷ declares that there is no understanding without a counter statement, without expectation of response. On that account, silence is also a response and, as such, it carries an axiological position. The meanings that orient policies, practices and narratives about representativeness are constituted in this complex interweaving between the said and the unsaid, presence and absence. Nunes (2019) attests that the response expected by the speaker, be it in agreement, disagreement or indifference, reveals the acknowledgment of the discourse and expresses the addressee’s evaluation, which configures his active participation in the communication.

Hence, when we adopt the dialogic approach, we assume that institutional discourses on diversity and inclusion not only describe social reality, but also contribute to constituting it, by shaping perceptions, guiding practices and legitimizing certain forms to organize the scientific field. This approach allows us to more deeply comprehend the ways through which language takes part in the production and reproduction of racial inequalities in the academic milieu, and, therefore, supports the analyses conducted in this study.

2 Methodological Aspects

This paper assumes a theoretical-methodological perspective founded in the philosophy of language by Bakhtin and his Circle, articulated with the sociohistorical concept of discourse, according to which all productions of meaning stem from concrete interactions among historically situated subjects (Bakhtin, 1981).⁸ This orientation has anchored the research on an analytical position that acknowledges language as a relational phenomenon, imbued with ideological, historical and axiological dimensions that shape modes of production, circulation and interpretation of meanings in science.

From such dialogic farmwork, it has become fundamental to consider the situations in which knowledge is conceived, produced and institutionally regulated. Thus, the methodological approach is not limited to a strict separation between quantitative and qualitative procedures. It prioritizes the analytical integration between both approaches, with a view to generating dense and contextualized interpretations, responsive to dialogic relations among data, subjects and discourses.

The conduction of the study strictly observed ethical requirements for investigations involving personal and institutional data. The project was approved by the Comitê de Ética em Pesquisa [Research Ethics Committee] - Certificado de Apresentação para Apreciação Ética [Certificate of Presentation to Ethical Appreciation] (CAAE) No. 85861624.4.0000.5690. It also relied on the formal authorization by the higher managing offices at the university, specifically the Pró-Reitoria de Pesquisa [Dean’s Office of Research] and the Pró-Reitoria de Gestão de Pessoas [Dean’s Office of Human Management], which granted institutional access to data and ensured that all steps were conducted in a responsible, transparent and safe manner. These procedures secured the preservation of the integrity of indirect participants, as well as of the institution. They also made sure that the data were treated scientifically, ethically, and duly handled, as determined by present norms. We chose to leave the name of the university anonymous, for preserving ethical aspects related to exposure, and for ensuring focus on the discussion of structural patterns of racial underrepresentation in a public institution of higher education.

In order to delimit the empirical universe, we proceeded with the organization, the crosschecking and the refinement of the list of researchers associated with scientific investigation at the institution, considering the period from 2000 to 2024 and only public servants with permanent employment. The data made available by the Pró-Reitoria de Pesquisa enabled mapping the participation of professors and administrative servants engaged in research, in production and coordination of science in the institution.

Data treatment and corpus were guided by the understanding that numerical, descriptive or documental information does not comprise a neutral record, but evaluative utterances which respond to and are attached to political, legal and institutional discourses that circulate in the scientific sphere. For this reason, each datum was comprehended as part of a broader speech chain, which organizes visibility systems, axiological disputes and possibilities for subjects to act in the institution.

For the sake of strictly identifying black researchers in the institution, a committee was established - the Comissão de Heteroidentificação [Committee for Racial Heteroidentification], composed by eight evaluators. This committee conducted the ethnic-racial classification - of servants with permanent jobs who dealt with scientific investigation -, based on phenotypical analyses of photographs available on their resumés registered with the CNPq and on other databases of academic-professional information. When the images came from external databases, the data of the resumés were crosschecked, considering, as central criteria, the correspondence of full name, institution and level of education. In cases where there were no photographs or where the image did not have adequate quality, the researchers were asked for an ethnic-racial self-declaration, in compliance with guidelines established by the Comitê de Ética [Ethics Committee] and with procedures approved by the institution, preserving autonomy, consent and confidentiality of those involved.

Each photograph was assessed independently by five members of the committee, in consonance with categories of racial classification adopted by the Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística [Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics] - IBGE (Brasil, 2018). The purpose of the phenotypical procedure, along with multiple assessment, was to reduce individual biases and ensure greater intersubjective reliability, in accordance with Bakhtin’s principle that meaning is produced in the interweaving of multiple evaluative voices.

In addition to the quantitative step, we conducted a discursive exam of Resolução CONSEPE n.º 338/2023 [Resolution No. 338/2023] by Conselho de Ensino, Pesquisa e Extensão [Committee for Teaching, Research and Outreach Programs] (CONSEPE), which regulates institutional research policies at the university under study. Such examination was added to the empirical data of racial distribution of researchers and project coordinators in the investigation period, as well as to the statements made by the participants of the focus group, taken during the investigation. The data triangulation among institutional documents, demographic information and discursive narratives led to tensions of meanings that permeate research policies, their historical formulation conditions and their effects on the participation of black researchers in science.

The resulting methodology joins quantitative traceability to a dialogic interpretative approach, understanding numbers as utterances that express historical and institutional positions. Thus, the methodological phase was not limited to data quantification or categorization; it was a critical and responsive exercise of interpretation, oriented by the principle that every utterance is, simultaneously, an answer to former discourses and an anticipation of a future answer-word, one that “provokes an answer, anticipate it and structures itself in the answer’s direction” (Bakhtin, 1981, p. 3689).⁹

3 Lei no. 12.990/2014, the Ação Declaratória de Constitucionalidade [Declaratory Actions of Constitutionality] (ADC 41) and the Comitê de Heteroidentificação from a Dialogic Perspective.

The enactment of Lei no. 12.990/2014 constituted a turning point in the Brazilian legal-political scenery, by assigning 20% quotas for black applicants in federal entrance/pre-employment exams for public service. It is important to emphasize that this paper is based directly on such legislation, as the data analyzed refer to the period from 2000 to 2024, when Lei no. 12.990/2014 was fully effective, conditioning both the ethnic-racial composition of public service and the institutional policies integrated with it.

Far from representing an isolated normative act, the law must be comprehended as an utterance which is inserted into a complex speech chain, historically produced by black movements, by researchers who came forward to speak of structural racism, and by political agents engaged with racial equity. The legal text explicitly acknowledges the existence of consolidated inequalities, when it affirms that “20% quotas are reserved for black people, in entrance/pre-employment exams for federal public service for permanent offices and public jobs in the realm of federal public administration” (Brasil, 2014, n.p.).¹⁰ Accordingly, the law expresses a responsive gesture by the State towards social voices which, for decades, have been advocating for the elimination of racially-excluding institutional practices.

The Ação Declaratória de Constitucionalidade [Declaratory Action of Constitutionality] No. 41 (ADC 41), judged by the Supremo Tribunal Federal [Supreme Federal Court] (STF) in 2017, deepens these dialogic dynamics by unanimously confirming the constitutionality of racially-based quotas. This court acknowledges that policies of racially-based quotas are compatible with the principle of material equity and with the fight against racial prejudice (Brasil, 2017), stating that such measures are legitimate instruments of affirmative action. The court’s ruling enlightens a fundamental characteristic of legal discourse: its responsive ability towards social demands. From Bakhtin’s perspective, no utterance is produced in the void; utterances always respond to former utterances and, simultaneously, anticipate possible future answers. Therefore, ADC 41 is inserted in the chain of meanings that joins historical complaints about inequality, social mobilization and ideological disputes, and it is thus configured as a legitimizing mark for the enhancement of racial equity public policies.

From this decision onwards, there has been space for consolidating heteroidentification committees as mechanisms that complement racial self-declaration. Ação Declaratória de Constitucionalidade No. 41 (ADC 41) itself acknowledges such need by stating that “it is legitimate to use, besides the self-declaration, supporting criteria for heteroidentification” (Brasil, 2017, p. 2).¹¹ The creation of theses committees, hence, is an institutional response to complaints about fraud and distortions seen in the first years after the quota policies became effective. More than an administrative instrument, heteroidentification should be understood as a situated discursive practice, imbued with multiple voices and oriented by values that dispute meanings of race, merit and social justice.

From Bakhtin’s theoretical framework, the function of these committees may be analyzed as an act of speech communication in which different social scenarios are in contact. For the theorist, meaning is born from dialogic contact between two consciousnesses, which entails the acknowledgment that all productions of meanings are relational, historical and responsive. Hence, heteroidentification is not exhausted in phenotypical verification - it materializes an ethical-political position on racial inequalities, and marks the insertion of new subjects in the institutional milieu. The committees then operate as a locus of confrontation among discourses (legal, scientific, activist and administrative) which interpenetrate one another, and establish new interpretative pacts on who is legitimately targeted by affirmative actions.

At universities, this is even more relevant. By debating on racial representativeness in scientific and academic production and coordination, this study constitutes an utterance that exemplifies responsiveness towards public discussions of racial equity. When it mobilizes heteroidentification as a methodological procedure, it is aligned with a series of discursive practices that aim at improving effectiveness of affirmative actions, and at dialoguing with social demands historically formulated by black movements, researchers and academic groups.

In this direction, not only is the incorporation of heteroidentification - as an instrument legitimized by ADC 41 - configured as an administrative technique, but it is also configured as situated discursive practice, in which different voices (legal, scientific, institutional and social) meet and negotiate meaning. From such viewpoint, this work is positioned as part of the dialogic chain that ignites tensions and reinterprets notions of justice, of belonging and of equity in the public sphere, according to Bakhtin’s assertion that every utterance responds to other utterances and projects new unfolding developments.

Therefore, far from being limited to a classification operation, the methodology adopted in this paper reveals its insertion into a broader process for constructing meanings of race and public policies, reaffirming that analyses on racial representativeness must be comprehended as an answerable, ethically situated, discursive practice. This theoretical-methodological orientation structures the work and connects it to a continuous dialogue that pervades the legal, institutional and academic field.

On that account, it may be said that the law and the public policies are not static objects, but live discursive phenomena, constantly reconfigured in the confrontation among social voices.

The consolidation of Lei no. 12.990/2014, its validation by ADC 41 and the strengthening of heteroidentification committees demonstrate that the State, responding to social demands, develops practices that go beyond the letter of the law and become closer to what Bakhtin describes as an ethical process of responsiveness, in articulation with the notion of the answerable act (Bakhtin, 1993).¹² From such perspective, public policies are understood as dialogic practices that are transformed and legitimized in the interaction among subjects, norms and institutions.

Consequently, in the examination of Lei no. 12.990/2014 and the institutionalization of heteroidentification, there is evidence of a continuous discursive movement in which the Brazilian State, propelled by different social agents, revisits its practices, redefine its criteria and reiterate its commitment to racial equity. Ultimately, what is in dispute are the meanings of equity, repair and belonging, meanings that are not fixed, but constructed in social and institutional dialogue, which characterizes democratic life.

Thus, the discussion herein developed establishes the scenario to comprehend how the institution is inserted in the speech chain that involves disputes about the acknowledgement and participation in science. In the following section, we dialogically analyze the institutional response expressed in Resolução CONSEPE nº 338/2023 [Resolution CONSEPE No. 338/2023], which determines Política Institucional de Pesquisa [Research Institutional Policies]. Such considerations study quantitative data of who are the ones that produce and coordinate science in the analyzed institution, including reports by the participants, obtained in interviews with the focus group, in order to identify the impacts of affirmative action laws on the representativeness of black researchers. This analysis will allow us to notice how institutional utterances are configured, in relation to broader legal orientations and historical demands that permeate the debate about race and science in Brazil.

4 Institutional Responsiveness to Policies of Social Inclusion and its Effects on the Production and Coordination of Science

The following discussion is sustained by Bakhtin’s principle of responsiveness, understood as the dialogic relation that every utterance establishes with other former, simultaneous and future utterances. In institutional terms, this means that administrative documents, internal policies and university norms do not emerge in an isolated manner; they are configured as responses (explicit or implicit, of adherence, modulation, silence or indetermination) to social and legal demands that circulate in the public sphere. From such stance, we investigate the responsiveness of a public university, located in the state of Mato Grosso, to Lei no. 12.990/2014, which assigned quotas for black people in the federal public service.

It is important to point out that, since its enactment, Lei no. 12.990/2014 has regulated the entrance of servants in public service - it does not set aside quotas for researchers as a specific category. Nevertheless, as the study in question exclusively analyses researchers who are servants at the institution - including professors and administrative technicians who produce or coordinate research -, we understand that the access (or little access) of black servants directly repercusses in the racial composition of the corpus. Although the law was not specifically conceived for scientific career, it structurally concerns those with positions involving research conduction and leadership. Furthermore, the approval of Lei no. 15.142/2025, which increased the percentage of quotas reserved for black people in the federal public service, reiterates the contemporary centrality on affirmative actions, as a means to face inequalities.

From this angle, the purpose of this section is to identify the nature of institutional responsiveness - is it a response of discursive adherence, partial modulation, silence or indirect responsiveness? To achieve such purpose, we use as reference Resolução CONSEPE No. 338/2023, a document that institutes and regulates the university’s Research Institutional Policies, by orienting principles, guidelines and responsibilities in the scope of scientific production.

Article 3 establishes that “Research Institutional Policies [...] have the commitment to critically respond to social demands, aiming at ‘reduction of inequalities and at social inclusion,’ besides income generation, sustainability and quality of life” (CONSEPE, 2023).¹³ Convergently, article 5 cites, among its principles, the “development of innovative solutions to productive and social inclusion”¹⁴ and the “reduction of regional asymmetries in production and access to science, technology and innovation” (CONSEPE, 2023).¹⁵

At first sight, these writings emphasize discursive alignment with historical agendas for equity, converging discursively with the spirit of affirmative actions in the country. However, the absence of explicit mention to racialized groups, especially to black population - focus of affirmative actions provided for in the law - configures a semantic displacement, which is relevant for dialogic analyses. From Bakhtin’s perspective, responsiveness is not expressed merely in content, but also in lexical and compositional choices present in the utterance. According to Bakhtin, “the speaker’s evaluative attitude toward the subject of his speech [...] determines the choice of lexical, grammatical, and compositional means of the utterance” (1986, p. 84).¹⁶

The option for broad categories like “inequalities” or “social inclusion,” without direct reference to racial features, is not neutral; it constitutes a form of elliptical responsiveness, which acknowledges social demands, but avoids their explicit naming. This phenomenon does not entail deliberate institutional resistance, but expresses a discursive logic that is frequent in administrative documents, in which generality seeks to render amplitude, but may result in diluting specific focuses.

Discursive silencing should be interpreted by considering historical structures that configure Brazilian science. Research on racial inequalities in higher education (Paula; Rodrigues, 2022) demonstrate that the invisibilization of black subjects in science result from long-term processes. The absence of mention to race in scientific policies, common in several public institutions, reiterates this epistemic matrix - by not stating “black,” the discourse institutes a false neutrality which, in practice, maintains exclusion.

In order to empirically understand the implications of this responsiveness which is predominantly generic, we conducted a survey of ethnic-racial classification of researchers, servants at the institution between 2000 and 2024, encompassing coordinators and members of projects formally registered. The data revealed a scenery of significant racial asymmetry: 84.7% of researchers are white, whereas 9.4% of are brown and 2.5%, are black, totaling 11.9% of black researchers.

This percentage is lower than the demographic composition both in Brazil and in the state of Mato Grosso, where most population is black (understood as the sum of black and brown people). According to data provided by IBGE, based on the 2022 Censo Demográfico [Demographic Census], “approximately 92.1 million people self-declare as brown, the equivalent to 45.3% of the population in the country [...], while 20.6 million people self-declare as black (10.2%)” (IBGE, 2023).¹⁷ Taken jointly, these categories exceed half of the Brazilian population, composing most demographics. Such pattern is also seen in the state of Mato Grosso, where the brown population prevails, as indicated by the 2022 Demographic Census (IBGE, 2022). Thus, the reduced participation of black researchers in the analyzed institution shows an expressive underrepresentation in relation to racial composition of the population, which reinforces the existence of structural inequalities in access to and permanence in scientific career.

The asymmetry is intensified when research coordination is examined in the university. Between 2000 and 2024, out of the 7,303 research projects, 6,306 (86.3%) were led by white people. Black people coordinated 708 projects - 150 were led by black ones (2.1%) and 558 were led by brown ones (7.6%). The others were coordinated by yellow people (218), indigenous (5) and brown indigenous ones (66). The data demonstrate that scientific leadership remains mostly concentrated on white researchers. Although this is a case study, these findings allow us to raise hypotheses and ignite discussions of the dynamics that may exist in other institutions in the country.

In the analyzed university, we verify that the enactment of Lei no. 12.990/2014 did not promote expressive changes in racial inequality regarding science. In 2014, when it was implemented, six registered projects were coordinated by black people - a lower number compared to 2013 (nine). The data related to brown people presented a slight growth in more recent years, like in 2023 (58) and in 2024 (41). However, these numbers are still distant from the population proportionality. The figures suggest a partial institutional responsiveness, as the federal policies of quotas in public service are not translated, automatically, into significant increases of black presence in scientific leadership.

The longitudinal analyses of the annual recurrence of coordinators reinforce such tendency. Among white leaders, a continuous growth is seen - from 60 in 2000 to 381 in 2023, an increase higher than 530%. Among black coordinators, a rise is also seen throughout the period, especially among brown people, even departing from a reduced number base. In this group, the presence of black people is more unstable - it varies between one and ten coordinators per year, with the highest number in 2011 (10), falling to four in 2024; brown people grew from six in 2000 to 50 in 2023, but fell to 36 in 2024. This trajectory reveals that white researchers not only enter, but also remain, in a more robust way, in positions of scientific leadership, accumulating symbolic capital and funding providers. The presence of black researchers, despite proportional augmentation in time, remains reduced in absolute terms, which indicates difficulties both in entering and in staying, especially when we consider, in proportional terms, the persistent distance compared to the occupation of white researchers throughout the period.

This inequality is not only quantitative, but it is also qualitative, in that it limits access to productivity grants, research networks, institutional committees and other forms of academic acknowledgments. These elements are fundamental for the development of solid scientific careers; ergo, unequal distribution reinforces exclusion mechanisms. Low black presence in leading positions compromises the epistemological diversity and limits the emergence of critical perspectives associated with racially marked experiences. In other words, scientific productions by white hegemony tends to reproduce silencing and invisibilities, which compromises the transforming potential of science.

Given this situation, the dialogic analysis of Resolution CONSEPE No. 338/2023, articulated with quantitative data, demonstrates that institutional responsiveness oscillates between generic discursive acceptance of inclusion policies and racial silencing that avoids directly coping with structural inequalities. The absence of significant transformation in representativeness data shows that such responsiveness, so far, is more likely to have partial adherence than effective incorporation of the provisions established by Lei no. 12.990/2014 in its scientific materiality.

Nonetheless, according to Bakhtin (1986),¹⁸ meaning is not stable nor self-sufficient; it is constituted in the dialogic process and, therefore, discourses that aim at neutrality are in dispute when they are appropriated by subjects who experience, on a daily basis, the effects of inequalities. When groups of black researchers undertake an active responsive position, they introduce, in the chain of speech communication, elements that destabilize the abstract character of policies, and invite the institution to take on explicit positioning.

This dialogic movement is revealed in the statement made by Participant 3, taken in the Focus Group, composed by six black researchers, black servants at the university. When asked how the academic environment favors or hinders inclusion, the researcher said:

[...] This happens when we find a group that helps us get stronger and helps us build this trajectory. I have come across many women, from the university and from elsewhere, that join me in this process. In the last meeting I had with the university presidency, and before with all the candidates for the election, I took a letter from the research group, asking them to sign off on our demands. These demands are collectively constructed every year, in a seminar about racial inequalities that we conduct. In this space we write an open letter. Most people who participate in the seminar are educators, teachers and professors of elementary school and higher education, researchers and many people from social movements. We wrote this open letter and I handed it in to the university president. One of the demands has to do with what we have been discussing here: the need to include - in the training/evaluating course everyone takes when they enter the institution - a moment dedicated to reflecting on how to face racism [...] (Participant 3, 2024, n.p.).¹⁹

This account unveils that institutional discourse, marked by the typical generality of administrative utterances, is tensioned by the emergence of social voices that demand concreteness, situating the antiracist struggle at the center of the university’s agenda. From Bakhtin’s perspective, it is the manifestation of the axiological nature of signs - the word inclusion, far from remaining neutral, is permeated with disputes about meaning and acquires new evaluations when it is appropriated by historically marginalized subjects (Bakhtin, 1986).²⁰

The researcher’s actions - mobilizing groups, writing a public letter and engaging in dialogue with the university president - exemplifies the process of discursive refraction. Through this refraction, terms which are apparently neutral take on political and ethical density. Such movement exposes the dispute about the legitimacy of voices that historically did not take part decision-making, putting a strain on the institutional understanding about inclusion and racial equity, and destabilizing the homogenous surface of official discourses.

By articulating these tensions with the quantitative data, we comprehend that the racial composition of the scientific body is strongly influenced by the system of entering public service. Although Lei no. 12.990/2014 regulates exclusively the access to public employment, its presence in the formation of the university staff repercusses in the study corpus. In contexts marked by little entrance of black servants in public service, internal research policies that do not consider race tend to reproduce the underrepresentation verified in the data. Thus, absence of guidelines that articulate scientific policies with racial equity does not constitute merely a discursive gap, but an element that contributes to maintaining asymmetries.

From the standpoint of dialogic analyses, it can be noticed that the institution is imbued with distinct voices. On the one hand, there is administrative discourse of a generalist nature; on the other hand, there are utterances of black researchers, who have specific demands. Among such voices, the materiality of racial data shows that black representativeness is not only a statistical indicator, but it is also the expression of axiological choices that orient scientific policies.

Consequently, strengthening an institutional agenda for racial equity relies on the capacity to produce responses which are more explicitly oriented by emerging demands of their very subjects. The study indicates that overcoming inequalities requires not only generality of inclusion guidelines, but also the adoption of concrete mechanisms that transform institutional culture and enhance, in an effective manner, diversity in the scientific field.

Final Considerations

The purpose of the analyzes presented in this paper was to answer the research question that oriented the study: how do institutional utterances - of a public university located in the state of Mato Grosso, produced in response to legal provisions on racial inclusion in public administration - impact the presence of black subjects in science? The focus may have been on only one university, but choosing this institution was due to the fact that it manifests discursive and structural patterns which reflect national tendencies towards racial underrepresentation in scientific research. Therefore, the case studied functions as an empirical representative unit, making possible the problematization of broader processes concerning Brazilian public higher education.

Accordingly, we have examined the intersection between legal and institutional discourses, researchers’ axiological position, and racial data that characterize the scientific field, by articulating Bakhtin’s theory with critical readings of research policies. The dialogic analyses have indicated that the racial composition of scientific leaderships does not emerge as a spontaneous or natural phenomenon; instead, it stems from disputes about meaning, evaluative choices and institutional practices which are materialized in specific utterances, and shape, in a concrete manner, how science is produced and legitimized.

The data related to the analyzed university show that, in the period of assessment, scientific leadership remained structured by persistent racial inequalities. The prevalence of white researchers in project coordination, the stagnation of black researchers’ participation, the low recurrence of black leadership, and the historical accumulation of such disparities reveal that the institutional system has not yet effectively incorporated the principles of racial equity. This scenery corroborates the findings presented herein. According to such findings, the absence of internal guidelines that associate research policies with racial dimension contributes to the discursive and material reproduction of the underrepresentation of black researchers in strategic positions.

Furthermore, we found that, even though measures such as Lei no. 12.990/2014 meant advances in public service, its reduced incidence in research policies at university shows the need for additional mechanisms that ensure not only the entrance, but also the permanence, career advancement and leadership of black researchers in decision-making spaces. The dialogic perspective has enabled the comprehension that disputes about legitimacy of historically silenced voices are inscribed in institutional practices that maintain discursive generality, unable to fully acknowledge racial dimension as constitutive of science. The quantitative data, exposing low black representativeness, demonstrate that diversity cannot remain as an abstract utterance. It needs to be affirmed as a concrete guideline in scientific management.

Given this scenario, it is essential to develop designs that integrate, explicitly and operationally, racial equity with research policies. The following actions are recommended: expansion of public notices for financing black researchers’ scientific production; creation of mentorship and institutional support programs for black researchers; revision of assessment criteria and academic merit, in order to include different trajectories; and consolidation of internal polices for racialized follow-up of scientific production and leadership. We also emphasize the need to adopt transparent protocols in screening processes, distribution of resources and definition of priorities, to ensure that diversity is actually taken into effect as an institutional principle, rather than only mentioned discursively.

The design of a plural, democratic and socially engaged science requires reflections, by scientific leaders, on the complexity and diversity of Brazilian society. More than symbolic representativeness, it is about acknowledging the epistemological and discursive potential produced by historically marginalized subjects and groups. Facing racial inequalities in the scientific field - also produced, legitimized and reproduced through language and institutional discourses - is a condition that is indispensable to consolidate a university which is committed to social justice and to the expansion of critical scenarios that underlie the public purpose of science.

• 1
  This paper originates from the study Pesquisadores negros na universidade: representatividade, discursos e posicionamentos valorativos em foco [Black researchers at university: representativeness, discourses and evaluative positions in focus], financed by Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico [National Council for Scientific and Technological Development] (CNPq), in partnership with the Ministério da Igualdade Racial [Ministry of Racial Equity] - process No. 443302/2024-3, approved by the Comitê de Ética em Pesquisa [Research Ethics Committee] - Certificado de Apresentação para Apreciação Ética [Certificate of Presentation to Ethical Appreciation] (CAAE) No. 85861624.4.0000.5690.
• 2
  Authors’ note for the article in English: Quilombolas are people that belong to the remaining communities of quilombos, recognized by the Brazilian State on the bases of self-identification, historical trajectory and specific territorial relations.
• 3
  BAKTHIN, M. Speech Genres and Other Late Essays. Austin: University of Texas Press,1986.
• 4
  VOLOŠINOV, V. Marxism and the Philosophy of Language. New York Seminar Press, 1973.
• 5
  For reference, see footnote 2.
• 6
  For reference, see footnote 3.
• 7
  For reference, see footnote 3.
• 8
  BAKHTIN, M. The Dialogic Imagination. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981. Kindle Edition.
• 9
  For reference, see footnote 7.
• 10
  In Portuguese: “ficam reservadas aos negros 20% das vagas oferecidas nos concursos públicos para provimento de cargos efetivos e empregos públicos no âmbito da administração pública federal.”
• 11
  In Portuguese: “É legítima a utilização, além da autodeclaração, de critérios subsidiários de heteroidentificação.”
• 12
  BAKHTIN, M. Toward a Philosophy of the Act. Austin: Texas University Press, 1993.
• 13
  In Portuguese: “a Política Institucional de Pesquisa [...] possui o compromisso de responder de forma crítica às demandas sociais, buscando ‘a redução das desigualdades e a inclusão social’, além da geração de renda, sustentabilidade e qualidade de vida.”
• 14
  In Portuguese: “desenvolvimento de soluções inovadoras para a inclusão produtiva e social” e a “redução de assimetrias regionais na produção e no acesso à ciência, tecnologia e inovação.”
• 15
  In Portuguese: “redução de assimetrias regionais na produção e no acesso à ciência, tecnologia e inovação.”
• 16
  For reference, see footnote 2.
• 17
  In Portuguese: “cerca de 92,1 milhões de pessoas se declararam pardas, o equivalente a 45,3% da população do país [...], enquanto 20,6 milhões se declaram pretas (10,2%).”
• 18
  For reference, see footnote 2.
• 19
  In Portuguese: “[...] Isso acontece quando a gente encontra uma coletividade que vem pra nos fortalecer e ajudar a construir esse percurso. Tenho encontrado muitas mulheres, tanto da universidade quanto de fora, que também caminham comigo nesse processo. Tanto que, na última conversa que tive com a reitoria e, antes, com todas as chapas que participaram da eleição, levei uma carta do núcleo de pesquisa pedindo que assinassem nossas demandas. Essas demandas são construídas coletivamente todos os anos, dentro da jornada sobre desigualdades raciais que realizamos. É nesse espaço que a gente elabora uma carta aberta. Quem participa do evento, em sua maioria, são educadores, professores da educação básica e superior, pesquisadores e muitas pessoas dos movimentos sociais. Fizemos essa carta aberta e eu a entreguei à reitoria. Uma das demandas tem tudo a ver com o que estamos discutindo aqui: a necessidade de incluir, no curso aprobatório que todo mundo faz ao entrar na instituição, um momento dedicado à reflexão sobre o enfrentamento ao racismo [...]” (Participante 3, 2024, n.p.).
• 20
  For reference, see footnote 2.
• Translated by Raquel D Elboux Couto Nunes - [e-mail]

Acknowledgments

This paper relied on the support by the CNPq, in partnership with the Ministério da Igualdade Racial, whose incentives were essential for the conduction of the study. We acknowledge and specially thank the efforts made by the collaborators who offered technical assistance: Bibiana Anjos Rezende (Doctoral Student at UFMT), Cristina Soares dos Santos (Doctoral Student at UFMT), Jocineide Catarina Maciel de Souza (Doctoral Student at UNEMAT), Karla Cristina de Sousa Oliveira (Master’s Student at UFMT), Marcio Monzilar Corezamae (Doctoral Student at UNEMAT) and Samara Pereira de Souza (Master at UFMT. We also thank Thaíssa Freitas da Silva (undergraduate student at UFMT), for participating in the scope of the Scientific Initiation Program. Finally, we emphasize the specialized collaboration by Professor Raphael de Souza Rosa Gomes (UFMT), whose contribution to data processing and treatment has been fundamental for the development of this work.

• Reviews
  Due to the commitment assumed by Bakhtiniana. Revista de Estudos do Discurso [Bakhtiniana. Journal of Discourse Studies] to Open Science, this journal only publishes reviews that have been authorized by all involved.

Research Data and Other Materials Availability

The contents underlying the research text are included in the manuscript.

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• Editor in Charge
  Adriana Pucci Penteado de Faria e Silva

Review

About the reviewerSCIMAGO INSTITUTIONS RANKINGS

Review

The text is very well written and addresses a theme of great relevance. It is indeed very important to report that the presence of black researches at universities is very low. It is vital to ensure “not only the entrance, but also the permanence, career advancement and leadership of black researchers in decision-making spaces” (p. 21). My remarks refer mostly to a few small details, which I shall present in the complementary notes. APPROVED WITH SUGGESTIONS [Revised]

• peer review recommendation: accept

History

• Peer review received
  28 Mar 2026

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  22 June 2026
• Date of issue
  2026

History

• Received
  12 Dec 2025
• Accepted
  02 May 2026