Memory and discovery of ancestry in the academic journey

Abstract

This article analyses the discovery of the author’s ancestry during her doctoral research, entitled “Indigenous peoples at a multi-campus university: academic experiences and reterritorialization processes”. The approach is qualitative combined with the technique of escrevivência [writing-living], supported by the resource of intersectionality and the theoretical proposal called embodied researcher. The procedure is a literature review. The analysis intersperses concepts and theories from various fields such as Sociology, Anthropology, Cultural Studies, Indigenism, and Education, giving the study an interdisciplinary character. The objective is to discuss concepts such as memory, acculturation, subalternity, strangeness, existence, and experience, from a decolonial perspective, linked to the life and academic journey of the cited author and researcher. The observations lead to the conclusion that the university is the appropriate space for sensitive and academic productions, which contribute to dialogue with subalterns, especially indigenous peoples.