Taking the risk of dialogical adventure

The possibilities of critical reading of Paulo Freire in the relationship between research, extension and postgraduate studies

Abstract

This essay aims to present and reflect on the lessons learned from offering the course "Special Topics in Methodology: Extension, Research, and Graduate Studies," taught in the graduate programs in Scientific and Cultural Dissemination and the Interdisciplinary Program in Applied Human and Social Sciences, both at the University of Campinas (Unicamp). The creation of the course, which has been offered three times, resulted from efforts to promote extension-related actions and reflections within graduate education, in the context of the mandatory inclusion of extension activities in undergraduate curricula. This requirement was established in 2018 with the publication of Resolution CES/CNE No. 7/2018, which set the guidelines for extension in Brazilian higher education. This essay begins by presenting and contextualizing Paulo Freire’s classic work Extension or Communication?. Building on this foundation, it offers a critical reading of the text in dialogue with bell hooks, particularly her chapter “Paulo Freire” from the book Teaching to Transgress. In the concluding remarks, I share brief reflections on the experience of integrating extension into graduate curricula, exploring how a critical reading of Freire can open new pathways for rethinking contemporary challenges of epistemic justice in the intersection of research, graduate education, and extension.