Academic journals in performing arts in Brazil: configurations of the editorial field and political articulations

Abstract

This paper analyzes the configurations of the editorial field of academic journals in Performing Arts in Brazil from a situated perspective linked to the experience within the Forum of Editors of Performing Arts Journals (Ferac), associated with the Brazilian Association for Research and Graduate Studies in Performing Arts (Abrace). Based on meeting minutes, public letters, institutional documents, and accumulated experiences between 2017 and 2026, the text discusses the material conditions of journal maintenance, structural inequalities among publications, conflicts between evaluation systems and epistemological specificities of the Arts, as well as the political articulations collectively developed by editors in the field. The analysis highlights the institutional heterogeneity of journals, the invisibility of editorial labor, and the tensions produced by evaluation models centered on quantitative metrics and international indexing systems. At the same time, it demonstrates how the Forum of Editors has become a space for editorial training, institutional memory production, and political elaboration within the field.