Laura Lobato-Baars

Laura Lobato-Baars is an anthropologist, writer and interpreter/translator from Brazil. She received her BA in Social Anthropology from the Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil, and is currently in her final year as an MA candidate at the Social Anthropology program of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. There, she is a member of the Anthropology and History Laboratory (LAB), a research group dedicated to, among others, investigating the complex relationship between these two fields of knowledge as they emerge in the works of the group’s members (http://lahppgas.museunacional.ufrj.br/). Laura’s specific interest in language has led her to the research topic for her thesis, that is, a variant of the Afrikaans language spoken in South Africa by the local so-called ‘Cape Muslim’ population. As a scholar both from the Global South and working within it, Laura is profoundly invested in the subject of knowledge de-centralization. She has thus found in the GDC a generative space to exchange ideas with other graduate students from different parts of the world, who are also committed to this ongoing, challenging project.