BETWEEN HARVESTED FRUITS AND NEW SEEDS: CONVERSATION CIRCLES, AN INTERSECTIONAL PROPOSAL TO FACE RACISM IN SOCIAL ASSISTANCE

This training notebook is aimed at people who make up the technical teams of social assistance, including middle and higher-level professionals, and aims to encourage training activities as a strategy to combat racism, considering the relationship between the categories of race, social class and gender. We suggest this material as an instrument that encourages workers to dialogue about confronting racism in their professional routine and, possibly, multiply anti-racist knowledge with users of services offered by social assistance. The technique of conversation circles is proposed to carry out debates to face racism in a dialogical and participatory way, this methodology being used in a project carried out in 2022 within the scope of the professional master's research entitled "Race, Class, Gender and Permanent Education in Assistance Social in Porto Seguro/BA", in the Graduate Program in Teaching and Ethnic-racial Relations at the Federal University of Southern Bahia, together with the technical team of the Reference Center for Social Assistance (CRAS) Arraial d'Ajuda, Porto Seguro /BA. The Notebook begins with an introductory session on the social markers of race, social class and gender, which are presented as predominant aspects among the majority public served by social assistance in Porto Seguro. Next, we describe four proposals for conversation circles experienced throughout the master's investigative course, which can be replicated in social assistance service units. Finally, we list suggestions for readings, videos, the form used to initiate the debate and the evaluation form.