“Nunca pensei que você fosse mulher”: a conquista de capital científico pelas bolsistas de produtividade em pesquisa da UFBA

Abstract

The academic career is marked by gender inequalities, which create relevant distortions in the profile of researchers and, consequently, in the content of the research carried out. Due to the specificities and dynamics of the scientific field, we have a singular job market, in which the objective is to produce knowledge, which takes place in a context of struggles and disputes for the monopoly of scientific authority, recognized by peer-competitors. In this work, we analyse how the socio-historical conditions of possibility, positionalities and dispositions of productivity in research (PR) grant recipients allowed the constitution of different trajectories and strategies to acquire scientific capital and, as such, recognition in the academic career. Therefore, from the intersectional articulation of gender, race/ethnicity, social class and generation, this study evaluates data from UFBa regarding PR grant recipients, comparing them with national data, generated from the database of the funding agency, such as the Plataforma Lattes, the Centro de Memória and the Programa Mulher e Ciência, and the Plataforma Sucupira – CAPES. We also analyse the life trajectories of PR grant recipients, obtained from their memorials, questionnaires and in depth interviews. The data shows the flagrant inequality of gender that still keeps women, during the studied period, with just a third of the available grants, a scenario that is aggravated when we consider each grant category alone. Additionally, the data indicate that the crossover of the several oppression systems result in singular and distinct trajectories that favor the entrance and progression of a still diminutive set of women.