Affirmative actions on higher education: ethnographic research on Indigenous experiences in universities of Mato Grosso do Sul (Terena and Kaiowá-Guarani)

Author(s)

Augusto Ventura dos Santos

• Document type: Master's Dissertation
• Press: São Paulo.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH/SBD)
• Defense date: 2015-12-10

Examining board members

Dominique Tilkin Gallois; Luis Donisete Benzi Grupioni; Leví Marques Pereira

• Advisor: Dominique Tilkin Gallois

Abstract

From the early years of the 2000s, there has been a significant increase in the demand put forth by indigenous populations in Brazil to ingress in universities. This debate of growing importance has brought about valuable issues concerning affirmative action interested in the democratization of higher education in this country. This thesis aims to contribute to this branch of discussions through an ethnographic investigation of the higher education experiences of two indigenous populations in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul: the Terena and the Kaiowá-Guarani. On one hand, the research seeks to follow the networks of relations engaged in the massive participation of Terena students in regular courses in the regions public universities. On the other hand, it describes the quotidian experiences of the Teko Arandu, an indigenous teacher education program, that has involved hundreds of Kaiowá and Guarani teachers. The ethnographic description of the plurality of practices and reflections in each of these cases points to the existence of specific ways of knowledge and ways of living, that are actualized in a very singular manner in the university context. In this sense, for the Terena entering higher education seems to be related to a proper disposition to seek broader and better positions in the world out there, thereby densening their connections, fulfilling their roles as social protagonists and imprinting their particular conduct. The Teko Arandu program, in turn, seems to constitute one of the important alternatives sought by the Kaiowá and Guarani in order to strengthen the ñande reko (our system); such alternatives involve experimentation and creative connections with technologies pertaining to the karai reko, the non-indigenous peoples system. (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 12/24078-6 - Networks of Indigenization of Science: indigenous scholars and the objectification of "culture"
• Grantee: Augusto Ventura dos Santos
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master