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Neuma Aguiar

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Neuma Aguiar
Born
Neuma Figueiredo de Aguiar

(1938-09-11)11 September 1938
Fortaleza, Ceará, Brazil
Died1 October 2023(2023-10-01) (aged 85)
Occupation(s)Sociologist, women's studies scholar

https://web.archive.org/web/20220327215218/https://www.redalyc.org/journal/381/38168080039/html/ https://www.e-publicacoes.uerj.br/CESP/article/view/45566/30781 https://web.archive.org/web/20220328161633/https://www.ufmg.br/ieat/2011/10/neuma-aguiar/ https://web.archive.org/web/20210817010104/https://record.com.br/editoras/rosa-dos-tempos/ https://www.newspapers.com/article/la-prensa-las-mujeres-brasileas-trabaja/145536065/

Neuma Aguiar (11 September 1938-1 October 2023) was a Brazilian sociologist and one of the women who introduced women's studies in the country.

Early life and education

Neuma Figueiredo de Aguiar was born on 11 September 1938, in Fortaleza, in the State of Ceará, Brazil,[1][2] to Emilia "Lili" (née Figueiredo) and Ilkens Almeida de Aguiar.[2][3][4] Her father was an employee of the Banco do Brasil.[4] Aguiar completed a degree in history from the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro in 1960,[1] and then went abroad to further her education, after winning a scholarship from the General Federation of Women's Clubs.[5] She earned a master's degree in sociology and anthropology at Boston University in 1962,[1] and was awarded the Pan-American Fellowship of the Organization of American States, to pursue graduate studies at Washington University in St. Louis.[6] In 1963, Aguiar married Roger Walker, a sociologist from Oxford, England who had recently completed a PhD in sociology at Harvard University.[3] Aguiar completed her PhD in sociology at Washington University in 1969.[1]

Career

Returning to Brazil, Aguiar first worked as an assistant professor at the Fluminense Federal University, at the National Museum of Brazil, and then the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, before being hired in 1972 to work at the Instituto Universitário de Pesquisas do Rio de Janeiro, the research institute of the Universidade Candido Mendes. Her research focus was primarily on the gendered divisions of labor. In 1978, Aguiar began offering the women's studies seminar, "A Mulher na Força de Trabalho na América Latina" ("Women in the Workforce in Latin America"), which evaluated both women's workplace activities and the challenges working women encountered. At the time, few universities in Latin America were analyzing women's socio-economic status. Of particular interest to Aguiar were unpaid domestic services women performed and how those contributed to the national economy. She cultivated a large network of other academics who were researching women, such as Brazilian researcher Elisabeth Souza Lobo and Indian sociologist Chandra Talpade Mohanty.[1] Aguiar was named a Tinker Professor of Sociology and Rural Sociology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison (UW–Madison) in 1981,[7] and delivered the lecture "The Beginning of Women's Studies in Brazil", for the women's studies program at UW–Madison.[8] She returned as a visiting professor at UW–Madison for women's studies in the 1983-1984 school term.[7]

In 1984,[9] Aguiar became one of the founding members of the transnational feminist network, Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN).[7][10] The network was created as a platform to promote feminist research and analysis, as well as global activism on socio-politico-economic issues which impacted women, particularly those in the Global South.[9] Aguiar served as the general coordinator, the highest post in the organization, from 1986 to 1990. As coordinator, she worked on initiatives aimed at addressing imbalances in the conditions which impact peoples' lives.[7] Aguiar was hired as a full professor at the Federal University of Minas Gerais in 1996. She founded the Centro de Pesquisas Quantitativas em Ciências Sociais (Center for Quantitative Research in Social Sciences) at the university and led its methodology directive for a decade. Her research continued to examine the impact of gender on time use, social stratification and social mobility,[1] and in particular, she focused on evaluating the roles women play in emerging, contemporary economies.[7] She also analyzed gender and patriarchy, as well as women's movements,[1] combining ethnographic, historical, and statistical data in an interdisciplinary approach, which became a model for other scholars.[7]

Aguiar received an honorary doctorate in 2003, from UW–Madison, in recognition of her "preeminence in the study of women's work in Brazil".[7] She was awarded the Vinícius Caldeira Brant [pt] Prize from the Federal University of Minas Gerais, as well as the Florestan Fernandes Prize of the Brazilian Society of Sociology in 2007, in recognition of her scientific contribution to the development of gender and women's studies in Brazil.[1][11] Aguiar retired in 2008 and was named a professor emeritus the following year.[1] In 2014, she was honored along with Lenira Maria de Carvalho, Clara Charf [pt], Herilda Balduino de Sousa [pt], Mireya Suárez, and Moema Libera Viezzer [pt] with the Rose Marie Muraro Prize by the federal Secretariat for Women's Policies and the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development.[1][12] Each of the women were also awarded R$50,000 in recognition of their contributions in various fields to develop gender equality in Brazil.[12]

Selected works

  • Aguiar, Neuma (1979). The Structure of Brazilian Development. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction Books. ISBN 978-0-87855-138-5.
  • Aguiar, Neuma (1980). Tempo de transformação no Nordeste [Time of Transformation in the Northeast] (in Portuguese). Petrópolis, Brazil: Editora Vozes. OCLC 7297221.
  • Aguiar, Neuma (1984). Mulheres na força de trabalho na América Latina: análises qualitativas [Women in the Workforce in Latin America: Qualitative Analyses] (in Portuguese). Petrópolis, Brazil: Editora Vozes. OCLC 12281581.
  • Aguiar, Neuma; Neves, Jorge A.; Fernandes, Danielle (2007). "Mobilidade Social Feminina [Women's Social Mobility]". In Aguiar, Neuma (ed.). Desigualdades sociais, redes de sociabilidade e participação política [Social Inequalities, Sociability Networks and Political Participation] (in Portuguese). Belo Horizonte, Brazil: Editora UFMG. pp. 165–180. ISBN 978-85-7041-610-0.
  • Aguiar, Neuma; Mont'Alvão, Arnaldo (April–June 2017). "Estratificação residencial, valoração do trabalho doméstico e uso do tempo: contribuições para a análise do caso Brasil" [Residential Stratification, Valuation of Domestic Work and Use of Time: Contributions for Analysis of the Case of Brazil]. Dados: Revista de Ciências Sociais (in Portuguese). 60 (2). Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: Instituto Universitário de Pesquisas do Rio de Janeiro: 331–357. doi:10.1590/001152582017122. ISSN 1678-4588. OCLC 8539592564.

References

Citations

Bibliography


Category:1938 births Category:2023 deaths Category:People from Fortaleza Category:Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro alumni‎ Category:Boston University alumni‎ Category:Washington University in St. Louis alumni‎ Category:Academic staff of Fluminense Federal University‎ Category:Academic staff of Universidade Candido Mendes‎ Category:Academic staff of the Federal University of Minas Gerais‎ Category:Brazilian sociologists Category:Women's studies academics