PEDAGOGY OF RESISTANCE: FOR THE RIGHT TO BE MORE. (AUTO)BIOGRAPHICAL NARRATIVES ABOUT ADULT EDUCATION IN PRISONS
Structural Racism. Adult Education in prisons. Pedagogy of resistance. (Auto)biographical research. Emancipatory education
The Brazilian penitentiary system has its roots in a culture that cultivates colonial and racist values, for this reason, a portion of the population was prevented from participating in the decision-making processes in an equal manner. This same portion of the population is subalternized, invisibilized, and subjugated by racial, cultural, and economic factors, and they are the ones who receive intentional clippings from law enforcement since the origin of the Brazilian penal system. In this study it was possible to identify the mechanisms of denial of rights used to perpetuate racism, discrimination, and mass incarceration of the black population. Furthermore, it was possible to see how these people have been denied the right to be, to know, and to power. Thus, access to education has never been a right of easy and permanent access. Access has always been restricted or denied even before they commit crimes or are deprived of their freedom. Thus, this study presents the (auto)biographical narratives of teachers/coordinators who worked or work in the Penitentiary System of the Federal District (DF). These are accounts of the life trajectory of strong and determined women who, aware of their social role in prisons, tell about the experience of doing EJA in prisons. All of them represent the struggle and the driving force that mobilized the group of teachers, for more than a decade, to significant changes at different moments in the history of education in the prison environment of the Federal District. We emphasize that this study is anchored in the decolonial perspectives, in the biographical method, and used narrative interviews as an instrument. All writing was constructed from bricolage. The study sought to decolonize the place of speech, which in our society has always been destined to white men, thus the need to privilege the voices of brown and black women when telling the story of EJA in prisons, highlighting the challenges and prospects for ensuring the right to education for people deprived of liberty. This is a qualitative study that values the subjectivity and the singularity of the subjects, understanding that there is no neutrality when making the choice of approach or methodology, thus, in a decolonizing posture we seek to bring the voices so often silenced throughout history in our country. The study has as its central axis the (auto)biographical dialogue of the researcher, who worked for eighteen years in the prison system as a teacher and coordinator, and the theoretical principles brought in the pedagogy of the oppressed by Paulo Freire. Besides this, there was also the contribution of other researchers, scholars on the subject, and the speeches of the teachers/ coordinators themselves, which appeared to enrich the proposed discussions in the light of (auto)biography, experiences, and the experiences of those who were in the prison environment, educating and being educated. It was an exercise of re-signifying the "I" and the "we" that allowed us to realize that experiences can be multiple and formative, both individually and collectively, since life stories can always be reinterpreted. Therefore, the study allowed the perception of the struggle of education professionals to make education happen in the DF prison environments, but it was also possible to perceive the forces that hinder the action of education in these environments. In some moments there are significant advances, but there are always regression processes as if there was a need to go back to the initial state. As a technical product, the author writes an educational action that privileges the place of speech of the student deprived of freedom about his right to say himself. It is also a guiding text that brings as a central argument the need for the student deprived of freedom to participate in the decision-making processes of his school, since they are the ones who need to say how this school should work, because it is in the dialogical and dialectical process that a conscious and participatory citizen is built and, therefore, the "re-socialization" takes place.