Os estudos culturais no ensino superior politécnico: Análise de uma experiência entre a investigação, o ensino e os negócios

Abstract

Cultural studies have been understood, from the onset, as an interdisciplinary field of study, in which culture is understood in a broad and dynamic sense, with great symbolic depth. In line with these basic principles of cultural studies, we will analyze here an experience of research and teaching of cultural studies in the Portuguese polytechnic higher education system, more specifically the way in which cultural studies are conceptualized and taught in the master's degree in Intercultural Studies for Business, at the Porto Polytechnic University. This reflection will cover the institutional framework, curricular organization, research and teaching methods of this master's degree, followed by its specific approach to cultural studies and the contribution of this field for the creation of business practices that are knowledgeable, inclusive and aware of human and cultural diversity. The article concludes that the educational action of cultural studies guides business practices in the development of an integral strategic sense, capable of recognizing ignored resources within the complex global political-economic framework. This process replicates the diachronic evolution of cultural studies and its construction of a comprehensive and dynamic concept of culture. Because these resources include not only cultural objects – both material and immaterial – that have been ignored, excluded or subordinated, but also cultural subjects – human – also ignored, excluded or subordinated by power. Cultural studies put the “return of the excluded” into practice, in an action that will no longer be prescriptive or merely descriptive, but rather actively critical, analytical and political, by confronting and deconstructing  subalternation itself.