Dr Lucas Amaral de Oliveira, Associate Professor in Sociology and the holder of a British Academy Visiting Fellowship 2023, was at Queen’s University Belfast (QUB) during semester 1 of 2023-2024 working on a project about “Contested Histories of Nation-Building: Counternarratives in Contemporary Brazilian Literature”. His stay was hosted by Dr Tori Holmes (Senior Lecturer in Brazilian Studies) and Professor Sarah Bowskill (Professor of Latin American Studies), through the Core Disciplinary Research Group in Modern Languages (CDRG ML).

During his time at Queen’s Dr Oliveira presented his research as part of the CDRG seminar series, held regular meetings with his QUB mentors, and participated in the research culture of the CDRG whilst working on several publications relating to his current research project on contemporary Black-authored literature from Brazil. He also attended the X Conference of the Association of British and Irish Lusitanists (ABIL) at University College Cork, visited the British Library in London, and held meetings with academic contacts in London and Manchester.

The event hosted at QUB on 30 November 2023, “Brazil: Methods in Context - Interdisciplinary Dialogues with Brazil and Brazilian Studies” featured talks by invited speakers Dr Claire Williams (Associate Professor in Brazilian Literature and Culture, University of Oxford), Dr Carlos Garrido Castellano (Senior Lecturer, Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies, University College Cork) and Professor Stephanie Dennison (Professor of Brazilian Studies, University of Leeds), as well as Dr Tori Holmes from QUB, and was chaired by Professor Sarah Bowskill. Topics covered included archival research on the work of author and journalist Clarice Lispector, the Brazil-UK coproduced film Jean Charles, contemporary Afro-Brazilian literature, and digital media and the Museum of Memes in Brazil.

Together, the papers invited reflections about how our methods of research change. Intertextual references abound in the digital media discussed by Dr Tori Holmes. Such layering of meaning may require a similar layering of methods. Equally, the combinations and recombinations of images, sounds and texts in digital media defy the artificial divisions we sometimes seek to impose between forms and genres. The disrespect for generic boundaries among authors, identified by Dr Claire Williams, also necessarily disrupts traditional research methods. Methods were additionally seen to be affected by where we are and the communities in which we live as Dr Carlos Garrido Castellano noted in his reflections about his teaching, research and outreach work at University College Cork. Similarly, for Professor Stephanie Dennison, a transnational framework helped her to think concomitantly about “here” and “there”. Finally, methods were seen to change due to our changing personal and professional contexts. As colleagues moved through their careers they were able to incorporate and combine methods in new ways building on their expertise whilst also, in the words of Dr Lucas Amaral de Oliveira, being mindful of the “gaps” between disciplines. Of course, the need to be flexible in they ways we do research was perhaps never more evident than during the pandemic.

Reflections on how research is conducted frequently connected to the question of why we do research. Colleagues generously shared their personal motivations revealing the deep commitment and attachment to their fields of study as well as the relationships that have enabled their research. The generosity of authors, directors, librarians and archivists was acknowledged for the way it enables much of what we do. In doing research involving other people and places, speakers acknowledged the ethical obligations and the importance of meaningful engagement asking ourselves for whom and with whom we work.

The group also held a closed research meeting on 1 December.