Cooperação Internacional e desenvolvimento para a Amazônia: a Internacionalização da educação superior no Núcleo de Altos Estudos Amazônicos (NAEA)

Abstract

The growing process of internationalization of higher education in the world compared to the few studies and research on the subject in the Amazon region, which is believed to be part of the challenges for the promotion of development, boosted the construction of this thesis. The work aims to add to the construction of theoretical-political and theoretical-conceptual debates on the internationalization of higher education, with a special focus on how this internationalization, in relation to international cooperation in environmental, educational, and regional themes, contributed or not to sustainable development in the Amazon. Contextualizing and starting from an analysis of the institutional policy of internationalization of the Núcleo de Altos Estudos Amazônicos of the Federal University of Pará (NAEA/UFPA), the conceptions, guidelines and strategies of this policy were identified in line with the processes of internationalization at an international level. Thus, the internationalization of higher education in this Nucleus is analyzed, from of the indescribability between teaching, research and extension, in order to offer answers to the construction of a corpus of theoretical-political knowledge on international cooperation for the internationalization of education in the Amazon Region. It is assumed that the existence of this movement of internationalization of higher education was part and, at the same time, is a fundamental part of the promotion of development in the Amazon region. By empirically reflecting on the process, the place of the Amazon, as a region, in the historical process of international cooperation for sustainable development through partnerships with the Núcleo de Altos Estudos Amazônicos is identified. To this end, strategies and the main institutional actions of the NAEA/UFPA internationalization policy were mapped, since it was created, in the 70s, from the methodological approach of institutional analysis. Education internationalization actions connected with public policy designs for the development and construction of a political culture were analyzed, with a single guideline, absorbed and learned, which it is argued led to a process of institutionalization of internationalization as part of the institutional strengthening of the NAEA and from UFPA. Finally, issues and contradictions present in the promotion of development for the Amazon and the place of this region on a global scale are discussed.