- OUR MISSION
Advances knowledge and understanding of Brasil through public education, international exchange, research, and cultural engagement, connecting communities, institutions, and ideas across borders.
Our mission comes to life through education, research, dialogue, and exchange. Terra Brasilis Institute creates opportunities for scholars, students, professionals, institutions, and communities to connect across borders, share perspectives, preserve memory, and engage critically with Brasil and its relationship with the world. We seek to make ideas more accessible, strengthen international collaboration, and create spaces where learning can lead to meaningful understanding and connection.
Our three programs put the mission into action: Public Education broadens access to ideas and culture, International Exchange builds connections across borders, and Research & Archives advances scholarship and historical memory.
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- OUR VISION
To foster a deeper understanding of Brasil by connecting people, histories, cultures, and lived experiences across borders.
We envision a future in which Brasil is understood in its full complexity and engaged as an essential participant in global conversations. Terra Brasilis Institute works toward a more connected, informed, and inclusive world in which historical memory is valued, diverse perspectives are heard, and cross-cultural understanding contributes to more thoughtful and humane societies.
Education opens new ways of seeing, exchange brings perspectives into dialogue, and memory connects past experience to present challenges. Together, they help cultivate informed, engaged communities capable of building more inclusive and humane futures.
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Anti-Eugenics principles
We affirm human dignity, bodily autonomy, equality, and the right of all people and communities to exist free from coercion, exclusion, hierarchy, and discrimination.
Human Dignity
Every person has inherent and equal worth. Human value can never be determined by race, ability, genetics, health, social status, or economic condition.
Bodily Autonomy
Every person has the right to make decisions about their own body, health, and reproduction free from coercion, manipulation, or forced intervention.
Equality & Inclusion
We reject discrimination, exclusion, and systems that classify or rank people and communities according to presumed biological or social value.
Reproductive Justice
Reproductive freedom includes the right to have or not to have children, and to raise families in safe, supportive, and equitable conditions.
Ethical Science
Scientific and technological advancement must respect human rights, transparency, accountability, and the social consequences of research and innovation.
Historical Responsibility
Understanding the histories and afterlives of eugenics is essential to recognizing how coercive ideas and practices can reappear in medicine, policy, technology, and society.
Our commitment: Terra Brasilis Institute applies these principles across its programs, research, archives, and partnerships, guiding how we work, collaborate, and make decisions.
We are part of the Global Anti-Eugenics Network developed through the From Small Beginnings project, an international initiative bringing together scholars, educators, activists, artists, and communities to confront eugenic legacies and help build an anti-eugenic future.
Core Values we live by
Human Dignity
We affirm the inherent worth of every person and place human dignity at the center of our work.
Critical Inquiry
We value scholarship, intellectual curiosity, and the freedom to question established narratives.
Plurality & Belonging
We embrace diverse perspectives, identities, and ways of knowing, fostering spaces of belonging.
Dialogue & Exchange
We value connections that deepen understanding and create possibilities.
Past & Responsibility
We preserve historical memory to understand its enduring influence on the present.
Integrity
We act with transparency, ethical responsibility, and intellectual independence.
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Terra Brasilis Institute is a nonprofit educational and charitable organization organized and operated exclusively for purposes consistent with Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.