Entre a plantação e a encruzilhada : escrevivência na formação em Letras – Inglês da UFPB

Abstract

This study analyzes how the persistence of the Eurocentric canon produces silences, erasures, and epistemological limitations that impact teacher education. I develop such an analysis based on my experiences and lived realities throughout my undergraduate studies in the evening program of the English Language and Literature at UFPB, from an anti-racist and decolonial perspective. As a Black student, I intertwine theory and lived experience through escrevivência (life-writing) to expose the plantation logic that continues to organize academic knowledge. My work is inspired by Grada Kilomba (2019), who helps me name the structural racism and epistemic violence within the university. Other key intellectuals inform this research: Luiz Rufino (2021) offers the notions of unlearning and dismantling as strategies of survival and re- existence; Nilma Lino Gomes (2012, 2017, 2019) grounds my analysis of the coloniality of knowledge and the need for educational policies that truly implement ethnic-racial diversity in curricula; and Aníbal Quijano (2009), whose formulation of the coloniality of knowledge helps me understand how Brazilian universities continue to hierarchize knowledge and silence non- European epistemologies. Conceição Evaristo’s (2013) concept of escrevivência is not only an inspiration for my writing but also serves as an insurgent methodology for plural voices to occupy the university from their own experiences. At the same time, I propose transformative possibilities: expanding literary repertoires, including Black and non-white authors, implementing racial literacy initiatives, and embracing insurgent epistemologies. I argue that transforming the curriculum requires breaking cycles of exclusion and enabling new subjects to recognize themselves as knowledge producers. More than inclusion, this work calls for a profound reconfiguration of what we understand as literature, teacher education, and university knowledge production.