The Postgraduate Program in Ethnic Relations and Contemporaneity is part of the Organ of Education and Ethnic Relations – ODEERE, which was founded in 2005, based on the studies of a research group “Education and Ethnic Relations: Knowledge and practices of African, Indigenous and Quilombola Legacies”, under the coordination of Prof. Dr. Marise de Santana. Since its foundation, ODEERE has become a space for the production of knowledge about ethnic relations, gender and sexual diversity. ODEERE stands out for its vocation for research and university extension. This extensionist vocation is evidenced by the fact that it qualifies dozens of people from the region every year, with special emphasis on teacher training, who adhere to the proposals and are actively engaged.

In May 2014, the PPGREC proposal was approved by Brazilian Federal Agency for Support and Evaluation of Graduate Education and the course began on August 1, 2014. The PPGREC has been offering a Master’s degree since 2014 and a PhD since the second semester of 2025. The area of concentration of the Graduate Program in Ethnic Relations and Contemporaneity is Ethnic Relations, Gender and Society, from multiple theoretical-methodological fields, which reiterates our characteristic as an interdisciplinary program. In this area of concentration, the PPGREC has two lines of research and the professors has experience in research with themes linked to one of the following lines: 1) Ethnicity, Memory and Education; 2) Ethnicities, Gender and Sexual Diversity.

ODEERE and PPGREC hold a major annual event called Afro-Brazilian Belonging Education Week. This event has gone from strength to strength every year, moving the city of Jequié in the month of November. Another event that also has a major local/regional impact is the Meeting to Combat Ethnic Discrimination, held annually in March since 2006. The Seminar of the Postgraduate Program in Ethnic Relations and Contemporaneity was incorporated into this event, where experienced researchers and students present their work and discuss ethnic relations in thematic forums.

We would also like to point out that, since 2016, the program has been publishing a journal called ODEERE: Revista do Programa de Pós-Graduação em Relações Étnicas e Contemporaneidade (ISSN 2525-4715), a four-monthly journal from the State University of Southwest Bahia (UESB), which has published original works developed around discussions on ethnicity, ethnic relations, gender and sexual diversity, addressing different social groups, such as indigenous people, black people, Africans, gypsies, etc. This journal reached the Qualis B1 classification in the last evaluation and has great potential for growth, representing an advance in the program’s interlocutions with other research networks, especially through the publication of dossiers.

In the last quadrennial evaluation (2017-2020) carried out by the Brazilian Federal Agency for Support and Evaluation of Graduate Education, PPGREC obtained grade 4 with expressive results in the three evaluation items: Program (Very good), Training (Good) and Social Impact (Very good).

The lack of qualified researchers, professor and teachers specialized in teaching and researching ethnic relations, gender and society in the Southwest Region of Bahia, as well as in other regions of the state, is a demand that the PPGREC has tried to cover.  In the last quadrennial evaluation (2017-2020) carried out by the Brazilian Federal Agency for Support and Evaluation of Graduate Education, the PPGREC obtained grade 4 with expressive results in the three evaluation items: Program (Very Good), Training (Good) and Social Impact (Very Good).

The mission of the PPGREC is to promote research and train researchers, teachers, managers and public policy makers who have the necessary knowledge to deal with ethnic, gender and sexuality issues in order to promote egalitarian, inclusive, anti-discriminatory principles and respect for differences.

Thus, the PPGREC has established itself as a program that values academic excellence, expanding and strengthening research in order to improve the production of scientific knowledge in the interdisciplinary area, training new researchers on the themes of ethnic relations, gender and sexualities, considering the social relevance of these issues, especially at the interface with undergraduate teaching and Basic Education. The role played by the Program in the region, its social impact and its extensionist vocation in terms of training people to deal with ethnic-racial issues, is clear.