Kamila Krakowska Rodrigues is a university lecturer at Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society. Her background is in Lusophone Studies and in her research on postcolonial cultural identities she combines cultural analysis, in-depth interviews and creative participatory methods.

More information about Kamila Krakowska Rodrigues

Teaching activities

Ba International Studies

BA Urban Studies

MA Arts, Literature and media (research)

PhD candidates: Alan Palacios

Fields of interest

Literature and cinema of Portuguese-speaking African countries; Brazilian literature and cinema; Indian Ocean Studies; migration, diaspora and transnationalism; Critical Archival Studies, creative participatory methods.

Research

Description of your research

In my research, I address the question of how (postcolonial) cultural identities are negotiated and represented in the contemporary, globalized Portuguese-speaking world, with a special focus on African and Afrodescendant communities. Through analysis of different media (written and oral literatures, cinema and audio-visual production), I try to offer a better understanding of the ideas of (un)rootedness, belonging, migration and displacement, as narrated by writers, filmmakers and performers with affective ties to Portuguese-speaking countries. I have been engaging with artists through in-depth interviews in which they reflect on their work as embedded in and transformative of wider societal dynamics. In my recent research inquiries (as part of HERA-funded collaborative project on night spaces and my ERC-funded ARTIVES grant), I have been combining these methods with co-producing and co-curating creative, artistic productions to capture the nuanced, embodied and intertwined nature of imaginaries of diversity and belonging. I am looking forward to exploring the potential of such co-creative participatory methods in policy-oriented research on grassroots culture and democracy in the coming years within the framework of the Horizon Europe project #DemocracyinAction.

Grants and awards

Individual grants:
January 2024 – December 2028

PI in the ERC Starting Grant

Title: City Tales: an art-based participatory framework for studying migration-related diversity (ARTIVES)

Funding: European Research Council (ERC) (grant number 101117068)

The ARTIVES project studies imaginaries of diversity portrayed by artists in Lisbon and Rotterdam in their films, performances and (oral) literature with the aim to explore their transgressive potential of opening up possibilities of thinking differently about migration-related diversity. Their stories will be the departure point to create a theoretical framework of ‘urban artives’. The notion of the artive will be built upon insights from artistic forms of storytelling and Critical Archival Studies to capture how multicultural cities are lived and imagined. Through the intertwined process of theoretical conceptualization and artistic creation, my team and I will trace the transnational network of belonging embodied in the local cultural scene and test the possibilities and limitations in relating to these stories without reproducing essentializing binaries such as ‘local’ vs. ‘foreign’.

November 2020 - February 2021
Faculty of Humanities Impact Fund grant
Grant awarded for increasing the social impact of research conducted within the NITE project. Collaboration with Marjan Beijering (Geschidenislab) and Davidson Rodrigues (DRM) and student assistant Maxime Schut (BA International Studies) to archive stories of first-generation Cape Verdean migrants to Rotterdam in Rotterdam Stadsarchief and disseminate the collection via a launching event and a podcast.

August 2020 - January 2021
Johanna Nijland grant  
Research grant for female academics at LUCAS funded by Dr. Susanna de Beer and Dr. Nadine Akkerman out of their NWO Aspasia grants.

Collaborative projects:
February 2025 – January 2028

Co-coordinator and leader of the WP ‘Creative Participatory Methodologies’

Title: #DemocracyinAction

Consortium coordinator: Dr. Sara Brandellero

Funding: Horizon Europe (grant number 101178843)

#DemocracyinAction studies arts and culture-based grassroots organizations in physical spaces and their social media and metaverse dimensions, to understand their critical potential in fostering democracy. #DemocracyinAction identifies solutions for increasing meaningful political expression and participation in four key areas of grassroots social transformation of untapped potential: 1) nightivism (urban nighttime cultural life for political engagement); 2) women’s rights mobilization; 3) racial and ethnic civic participation through cultural expression; 4) youth activism and civic education. The project’s research strategy aligns with the EU’s enshrined principle of subsidiarity, to deliver new insights on how bottom-up arts and culture can channel inclusive political expression and advance societal well-being at a time when democracy faces unprecedented challenges.

May 2019-January 2023
Co-investigator in the research project NITE
Title – Night Spaces: Migration, Culture and Integration in Europe
Project Leader – Dr. Sara Brandellero
Host Institution – LUCAS, Leiden Universiteit
Funding – Humanities in the European Research Area (HERA)/European Commission (grant number 2.060)
https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/research/research-projects/humanities/nite#tab-1 

August 2016 - November 2020
Member of the research project NILUS
Title – Narratives of the Indian Ocean in the Lusophone World
Principal Investigator – Dr. Ana Mafalda Leite
Host Institution – CESA/ISEG, Universidade de Lisboa
Funding – FCT PTDC/CPCELT/4868/2014
https://cesa.rc.iseg.ulisboa.pt/nilus/

July 2013 – September 2015
Member of the research project NEVIS
Title – Written and Visual Narratives of the Postcolonial Nation
Principal Investigator – Dr. Ana Mafalda Leite
Host Institution – CESA/ISEG, Universidade de Lisboa
Funding – FCT PTDC/CPC-ELT/4939/2012
https://cesa.rc.iseg.ulisboa.pt/nilus/projetos-anteriores/nevis/

March 2009 – November 2011
Member of the research project NNPC
Title – Postcolonial Nation and Narrative
Principal Investigator – Dr. Ana Mafalda Leite
Host Institution – CESA/ISEG, Universidade de Lisboa
Funding – FCT PTDC/AFR/68941/2006
https://cesa.rc.iseg.ulisboa.pt/nilus/projetos-anteriores/nnpc/

Awards:
Fernão Mendes Pinto Prize 2015
Prize for the best dissertation in all academic disciplines which contributes to the rapprochement of the Portuguese-speaking countries awarded by Associação das Universidades de Língua Portuguesa (AULP) and Comunidade dos Países de Língua Portuguesa (CPLP).

Short Curriculum vitae

2017-present
University lecturer at LUCAS

2016-2017
Lecturer at BA International Studies (Faculty of Humanities/Leiden University)

2009-2014
PhD in Brazilian Literature (summa cum laude)
University of Coimbra, Portugal

Selected publications

Brandellero, Sara, Kamila Krakowska Rodrigues and Derek Pardue (eds.). 2024. Urban Nightlife and Contested Spaces: Cultural Encounters After Dusk. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. (Forthcoming 16-12-2024)

Krakowska  Rodrigues,  Kamila,  Laura-Solmaz  Litschel,  Derek  Pardue,  Katie  Young,  and  Jordan  Rowe  (eds.).  2021.  Special  Issue  “Reimagining the Night.” Urban Pamphleteer #9.

Krakowska Rodrigues, K. 2021. “The Other (Hi)Stories: Diasporic tides of the (Lusophone) Indian Ocean in Skin and O Outro Pé da Sereia.” Portuguese Studies 37, no. 2: 210-223.

Krakowska, Kamila. Na Demanda da Ideia de Nação: as viagens pós-coloniais na obra de Mário de Andrade e Mia Couto. Lisboa: Instituto Camões, Fernão Mendes Pinto Prize Series, 2019.

Leite, Ana Mafalda, Jessica Falconi, Kamila Krakowska, Carmen Tindó Secco, and Sheila
Khan (eds.). Voices, Languages, Discourses. Interpreting the Present and the Memory of Nation in Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau and São Tomé and Prı́ncipe. Oxford: Peter Lang, 2019.

Publications