Conference Program

The current multiple and intertwined crises, unfolding worldwide, shape how we imagine the future, and threats of apocalyptic scenarios and dystopian societies appear increasingly concrete nowadays.

On the one hand, envisioning an increasingly uncertain and bleak future is negatively impacting the mental health of ever-larger segments of the global population, particularly the most vulnerable, including children, adolescents, and young adults (Cianconi et al. 2023). On the other hand, large segments of the global population, particularly those still experiencing the impact of processes of exploitation and domination rooted in European colonialism, find themselves daily confronting the challenges of a life in which even imagining a future becomes a form of resistance to deprivation.

The future is a “cultural fact” (Appadurai 2013): imagining and reinventing it, moving away from already established or imposed trajectories, requires the availability of accessible material and symbolic resources, as well as the ability to use those resources.

With these premises in mind, the project Closer to the Sky: Co-creating Astronomical Knowledge in the Favela Complex of Cantagalo Pavão Pavãozinho (PPG) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, was launched in 2023 (Cortesi et al. 2023). This project emerged from direct and long-term collaboration among astronomers and educators from the local Observatory of Valongo, the PPG astronomy club and the educational center Ninho das Águias, located in the Pavãozinho section of the favela complex.

In Brazil, the everyday routine of favela dwellers, mostly Afro-descendants, is marked by insecurity, violence and “peace-time crimes” (Scheper-Hughes 1997), affecting the population's psychological wellbeing, in particular that of children, with a negative impact on their learning ability (Data Favela 2025).

The project, funded by the International Astronomical Union - Office of Astronomy for Development (IAU-OAD), is addressed to children, adolescents, young adults, and adults living in the above-mentioned favela complex and is implemented by co-creating scientific content together with favela residents, artists, educators, and researchers in various disciplines. Its primary objective is using the inspiration and restorative power of astronomy (Mdhluli et al. 2025; Vertue 2022) to co-produce knowledge and promote the right to full and informed citizenship for favela dwellers who face discrimination and whose socioeconomic vulnerability is rooted in the structural racism and violence that still impact wide segments of Brazilian population, such as the Afro-descendants and indigenous communities (Ribeiro Corossacz 2005; Ioris 2023).

Through this paper, we share some reflections on: 1) the transdisciplinary dialogue established during the project, particularly among the astronomical, pedagogical, and anthropological perspectives; 2) the actions undertaken aimed at combating school dropout among children and developing professional skills among young adults and adults; and 3) on the co-production of knowledge and practices from a decolonial, participatory, transdisciplinary, and reflexive approach.

The combination of educational practices with the implementation of ethnographic research methodologies aimed at stimulating a reflection on the project experience itself aims at fostering the ability to imagine and design more just and sustainable futures in the global context, from below, by recognizing and enhancing the potential of too often silenced and marginalized voices.