Completed research projects
History in dispute: historical revisionism in Telegram’s disinformation ecosystems (2018-2024)
Description: The project examines how far-right groups in Brazil use the Telegram messaging app to mobilize and propagate historical revisionism and disinformation narratives, focusing on implications for democracy and society. The research identifies strategies used by extremist groups to manipulate history and disseminate disinformation, examining the consequences of these practices on public perception and democratic policies. The methodology combines computational analysis techniques, such as natural language processing and social network analysis, with qualitative methods, including content analysis and digital ethnography.
Status: Completed (2024-2025); Nature: Research. Members: Eric Brasil Nepomuceno - Coordinator / Eric Francis Maia - Member / Leonardo Fernandes Nascimento - Member / Danielle Sanches - Member.
Digital democracy: analysis of Telegram’s disinformation ecosystems during the 2022 Brazilian electoral process
Description: The project aimed to map multiplatform ecosystems of far-right Brazilian groups on Telegram during the 2022 Brazilian electoral process. The research assumed a mixed-methods perspective, combining computational data analysis with socioanthropological analyses.
Status: Completed (2022-2023); Nature: Research. Members: Eric Brasil Nepomuceno - Member / Leonardo Fernandes Nascimento - Coordinator.
Decoloniality in children’s and youth literature
Description: The project is part of the study of the history of school editions and proposes to conduct a survey and cataloging of children’s and youth literary production over the last four decades, focused on curricular and epistemic innovations emerging from the context of laws 10.639/03 and 11.645/08. The temporal scope covers 1982 to 2022, during which this emerging literature stands out in Brazilian editorial history, making African, Afro-Brazilian, and indigenous cultures visible and positive.
Status: Completed (2022-2024); Nature: Research. Members: Eric Brasil Nepomuceno - Member / Lucilene Rezende Alcanfor - Coordinator.
Disinformation ecosystem and computational propaganda in the Telegram app
Description: This project established a multi-method mapping and analysis framework of far-right networks on Telegram, combining computational analyses based on corpus linguistics (CL) and natural language processing (NLP) techniques with a mixed qualitative approach of discourse analysis and online ethnography. The project also included a complementary qualitative analysis of the semiotic-discursive patterns of circulated content.
Status: Completed (2020-2022); Nature: Research. Members: Leonardo Fernandes Nascimento - Coordinator / Eric Brasil Nepomuceno - Member / Paulo F. C. Fonseca - Member / Leticia Maria Costa da Nóbrega Cesarino - Member / Vítor Mussa Tavares Gomes - Member / Rosana Moore - Member.
Funding: CNPq.
Methods, digital tools and repositories in Portuguese: a framework for research in digitized periodicals
Summary: The project analyzes the historiographical operation related to the process of selecting, collecting, and organizing primary sources through digital tools and data. It focuses on repositories and graphical interfaces that allow access to digitized Portuguese-language press periodicals, with emphasis on the Hemeroteca Digital Brasileira and the periodical collection of the Biblioteca Nacional Digital de Portugal. The result is a digital framework encompassing the stages of historical research for this type of source. Access the final research product here.
Status: Completed (2021-2023); Nature: Research. Members: Eric Brasil Nepomuceno - Coordinator / Daniel Alves - Member.
Maintaining, creating and publishing digital history projects: the case of Programming Historian
Summary: This project aimed to analyze the Programming Historian guidelines, structure, and workflow, both on the website and in the organization’s GitHub repositories. As a result, reports were produced about the current state of the technical architecture of the PH and its documentation, as well as a set of recommendations for corrections and improvements, mainly in the Portuguese version, and an original lesson in Portuguese. The research was carried out at the Laboratory of Digital Humanities of the Institute of Contemporary History of Universidade Nova de Lisboa (IHC, NOVA/FCSH), under the supervision of Daniel Alves.
Status: Completed (2022-2023); Nature: Research.
Digital History: digital archives and tools for research and teaching
Description: The project promoted debate on the theoretical-methodological impacts for the historian and history teacher generated by the unstoppable advance of both digital archives of primary sources and digital tools for research, writing, and teaching. It aimed to build collections of online digital source repositories available for research and reflect on their implications for History and its teaching in Brazil.
Status: Completed (2020-2021); Nature: Research. Students involved: Undergraduate: one PIBIC grant holder.
Post-Abolition: meanings, uses and academic publications (2004-2019)
Description: This project characterized academic production on Post-Abolition in Brazil between 2004 and 2019, analyzing the main themes, chronological and spatial cuts, as well as educational institutions and academic journals that have produced and published research on this field of study. Digital research, analysis, and data visualization tools were used, producing historiographical reflections and contributing to the production of tools, scripts, data, and digital graphs.
Status: Completed (2019-2020); Nature: Research. Students involved: Undergraduate: one PIBIC/Unilab grant holder.
Black Performances in São Francisco do Conde’s Carnival, BA, in Post-Abolition
Description: The project analyzed Black experiences of social mobilization and anti-racism through practices, manifestations, institutions, and cultural carnival associations in the city of São Francisco do Conde, Bahia in the Post-Abolition period. It aimed to develop and enhance the research skills of young Unilab students, promoting reflections on identities, citizenship, memory, and the history of racism and anti-racism in Brazil and the Afro-Americas.
Status: Completed (2018-2019); Nature: Research. Students involved: Undergraduate: two PIBIC grant holders.
Which Americas? A study of Latin American and Caribbean History productions in Brazil using CAQDAS software – between 1991 and 2018
Description: This project characterized academic production on Latin American and Caribbean History in Brazil between 1991 and 2018, analyzing main themes, chronological and spatial cuts, as well as educational institutions and academic journals. It used CAQDAS software (especially R for webscraping of history journals on the Scielo platform, and Atlas.ti for coding and analysis) to build a detailed overview of publications on Latin America and the Caribbean.
Status: Completed (2017-2019); Nature: Research. Students involved: Undergraduate: one PIBIC grant holder.
Music, race and colonialism in the Caribbean: Black experiences in Trinidad and Tobago (c. 1900-1920)
Description: This project investigated the experiences of Black subjects in the British colony of Trinidad and Tobago, in the Caribbean, between the 1900s and 1910s, analyzing their public mobilizations, performances, and formation of carnival associations in contact with different spheres of power. It aimed to make available a commented bibliography on Black culture, music and performance, and colonialism in the Caribbean, as well as a database produced from colonial documentation and periodicals.
Status: Completed (2012-2016); Nature: Research. Students involved: Undergraduate: one PIBIC grant holder.