Internacionalização na Universidade Estadual do Maranhão: mobilidade e Sul Global nas percepções da comunidade acadêmica

Abstract

This research analyzes, from the perspective of historical materialism and drawing on concepts such as coloniality, imperialism, and Marxist dependency theory, how the internationalization of higher education manifests at the State University of Maranhão (UEMA) and how it may reproduce or challenge relations of dependency, power, and coloniality within the world-system. It adopts a historical-structural approach to understand the formation of the university and of academic internationalization, highlighting their non-neutral character and their insertion within the hierarchies of the world-system. Methodologically, the study is based on the application of an online questionnaire to the academic community, aiming to investigate perceptions of international mobility and relations with Latin America and the Global South, allowing for the testing of hypotheses regarding the valorization of central countries and the reproduction of asymmetries. The results indicate a dissociation between declared knowledge and actual mobility experience, as well as a predominance of preferences for destinations in the Global North, revealing the internalization of historically constructed hierarchies. It concludes that international mobility operates as a social practice mediated by power relations, reproducing patterns of dependency and coloniality, albeit permeated by mediations and contradictions that point to possibilities for transformation. Finally, the study argues for the need to re-signify internationalization, orienting it toward more autonomous and cooperative forms within the Global South.