Rita Morais de Andrade, Brazilian born from São Paulo city, is Associate Professor at Universidade Federal de Goiás, teaching and supervising undergraduate and postgraduate projects at the Faculty of Visual Arts.
Her scholarly focus is object-based and material culture research on histories of Brazillian dress and textiles. She seeks to integrate clothing and houseware with the many aspects of everyday life by observing and considering objects as an active part of social life. As lider of research group Indumenta: dress and textiles studies in Brazil (UFG/CNPQ), Rita seeks to broaden the scope of dress histories by adding presences and voices of ordinary people, especially women, that speak of solidarity and a more sensitive worldview. Such worldviews are much found in Indigenous and AfroBrazilian cultures.
Her background is multidisciplinary. She has a bachelor’s degree in Fashion and two specializations, one in Museology and the other in African and AfroBrazilian Culture and History. Her Master’s degree in History of Textiles and Dress (University of Southampton/UK), was a turning point in her professional path, later complemented by a doctorate degree in Cultural History (PUC-SP, Brazil), both projects were object-based research.
At her post-doctoral internship in Anthropology (PACC-UFRJ, Brazil), she investigated the presence of “dress” as a collectable category in Brazilian museums and the representativeness of the Brazilian populations in these collections. This trajectory, plus other complementary training and a number of professional experiences in the clothing industries, museums and universities, shaped a multifaceted vision of the field. Her teaching and research express this in the work methodology that seeks to integrate those experiences oriented towards more decolonial practices as she supervises students from undergraduate to postgraduate levels and on her own research.
Some prominent publications are: co-editor of two special issues – Latin America Fashion and Brazilian Fashion – of Fashion Theory: the journal of body, dress and culture (2014 and 2016). Co-author of a chapter on Brazilian dress at the Berg´s Encyclopaedia of World Dress and Fashion (2010).
Follow updates of her work on the Instagram profiles: @indumenta.br and @ritamoraisandrade.
Orcid: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1412-6689 Access her institutional page at: http://www.docente.ufg.br/ritaandrade
Research Collective for Decoloniality & Fashion 