LEGACIES OF COLONIALISM AND INEQUALITIES IN HIGHER EDUCATION TEACHING WORK:

AN INTERSECTIONAL ANALYSIS

Abstract

Brazilian society remains marked by the inequalities produced by the processes of invasion, colonization, and enslavement of Indigenous peoples, whose effects still structure social, political, and cultural relations. With an interdisciplinary approach and grounded in Black Feminism and Decolonial Theory, this article examines how coloniality, racism, and patriarchy shape intersectional inequalities in teaching work in Higher Education. It argues that the university, historically established as an elitist institution, reproduces gender, race, and class hierarchies that restrict the access of socially marginalized groups to positions of academic recognition and prestige. It is evident that Black women and subjects from popular classes face multiple forms of oppression derived from the persistence of colonial structures, expressed, among other aspects, in the sexual and racial division of labor. It is concluded that intersectionality constitutes an essential analytical tool for understanding and confronting the inequalities that permeate labor relations and, in particular, university teaching.