Gritaram-me pretinha! Escrevivências das brincadeiras africanas em conexão com a autodeclaração racial na escola: vidas das crianças negras importam!

Abstract

This doctoral research did not arise from a derivation of theoretical or hierarchical categories; it stems from stories, memories, experiences, and recollections of the collective past of a Black woman teacher, from the unfolding of writing perspectives. It aims to investigate how the process of ethnic-racial self-declaration impacts the lives of children in the different contexts of a full-time elementary school, considering ethnic-racial issues, poverty, and social inequalities—that is, the experiences and (re)existences of self-declaring their races/colors. The methodological approach is a commitment to writing experiences in dialogue with Evaristo, in the context of Afroperspectivity. The investigative, self-reflective, and reflective style is supported by theoretical frameworks from different fields of knowledge, such as philosophy, sociology, history, psychology, and the arts, used as theoretical support for (re)positioning in multiple dialogues with education. In a movement to (re)visit the stories, memories, schooling, and lives of Black children in Brazil and other countries, we engage with photographs, images, memories, and fragments, engaging in dialogue with community residents and families involved in the self-declaration process of children in the early years. There are still few theoretical and epistemological studies that address the processes of ethnic-racial declaration or classification of children, but it is important to understand racialized discourses and the possible paths to overcoming racism and discrimination present in everyday school life. There is an urgent need to advance this topic in the field of research to continually strengthen anti-racist academic production. Regarding the field research conducted in 2023 and 2024, the connections with games, drawings, and toys of African origin highlighted racial declaration and selfdeclaration as a path permeated by rites of passage, territories of sensibilities, and ancestries, shaped by marks, affections, and traces arising from experiences at school and in the family. In other words, children, when declaring themselves Black or white, learn not only to make room for what arrives, but also to be a port and space for childhood events and movements, as a necessary opening for self-knowledge, for others, and for their self-esteem, in a dialogical movement of multiple ethnic-racial relations, especially political participation in deciding how to self-declare.