Alana Castro de Azevedo (°1989) holds a bachelor’s degree in anthropology from the Federal University of Paraná (Brazil) and a master’s degree in cultural heritage management through the Erasmus Mundus+ JMD DYCLAM. After her master’s, she worked as a consultant for 'the Slave Route Project', a UNESCO initiative aimed at identifying and promoting heritage sites related to transatlantic slavery and the slave trade. In September 2019, she joined Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam as a doctoral researcher. In her work at VUA, she investigated the participation of citizens in efforts to publicly memorialize colonial slavery and the Holocaust. Her doctoral thesis, titled “When ‘memory work’ becomes ‘memory protest,’” focused on the process of creating contemporary memorials and the conflicts that inevitably arise. She is currently (since 15 June 2024) a postdoctoral researcher at CegeSoma/State Archives in the CONCILIARE project (CONfidently ChangIng coLonIAL heRitagE), where she investigates public controversies over colonial heritage.

PUBLICATION

• de Azevedo, A.C., ‘Barriers to public participation in memorialisation processes: Evidence from the Dutch Holocaust Memorial of Names’,  in J. Rodenberg, P. Wagenaar, and G-J. Burgers (eds), Calling on the Community: Understanding Participation in the Heritage Sector, an Interactive Governance Perspective. New York/Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2023, pp. 162-188.