Conference Agenda

Under the suspicion that the colonial management of the world, which has led large majorities to a subhuman situation, is linked to a metaphysics that interprets reality through categories such as substance, essence, eternity, principles and causes, which translates into ways of historicising reality dominated by the concepts of object-subject, cause-effect, calculation, manipulability, efficiency and universality, terms whose interpretative violence annihilates the possibility of dialogue, silences any argumentative interpellation, excludes the plurality of meanings of what exists and the diversity of worlds and knowledge (Blanco, 2019).This paper aims to analyse how this interpretation affects the way we historically understand our social and educational realities and how we can propose an alternative epistemic horizon.To this end, we will make use of the analytical and programmatic possibilities offered by the pensiero debole of the Italian philosopher Gianni Vattimo and, in particular, the potential offered by the openness of his nihilistic hermeneutics to recognise, from a historiographical perspective, the ontological, political and epistemological diversity that governs both collectivities and educational processes and institutions. Thus, this communication aims at an educational approach to Vattimo's (1986) nihilistic hermeneutics, whose hermeneutic project seeks to weaken colonial domination and the violence it re(produces), in order to promote a different way of thinking that is not based on stable and eternal principles or foundations. And thus to be able to propose epistemological foundations on which other decolonial ways of historicising education can be based (Schubring, 2021).Therefore, and following the aforementioned approach, an approach that aims to maintain a epistemic humility that allows each perspective some valid access to educational reality and to the different ways of historicising it (Suárez-Krabbe, 2017), this paper seeks to question the three types of coloniality that shape the colonial way of doing educational history today: The coloniality of power (a power that derives from neoliberal capitalism and sets the research agendas in historiographical matters), the coloniality of knowledge (which assumes that there are hierarchical differences between the modes of production and validation of historical-educational knowledge), and the coloniality of being (which produces both first- and second-class objects to be historicised and subaltern subjects of historians) (Castro-Gómez and Grosfoguel, 2007) (Castro-Gómez and Grosfoguel, 2007). All of this within academic coordinates that insist on the inescapable unity of history (Vattimo, 1989), taking for granted the timeless and structuring character of certain principles (God, the West, gender binary, nature, etc.) on which educational realities are based, and against whose claim and universal scope only submission, transmission and reproduction remain. Thus, the critical reading of these three types of colonialities should allow us to outline, in an introductory and propositional way, some orientations that could facilitate, in the near future, historical-educational approaches more conducive to decoloniality, based on the nihilistic Vattimanian hermeneutics.

Bajo la sospecha de que la gestión colonial del mundo, que ha llevado a grandes mayorías a una situación subhumana, está vinculada a una metafísica que interpreta la realidad mediante categorías como son las de substancia, esencia, eternidad, principios y causas, lo que se traduce en modos de historiar la realidad dominados por los términos objeto-sujeto, causa-efecto, cálculo, manipulabilidad, eficiencia y universalidad, términos cuya violencia interpretativa aniquila la posibilidad del diálogo, acalla cualquier interpelación argumentativa, excluye la pluralidad de sentidos de lo existente, y la diversidad de los mundos y los saberes (Blanco, 2019), en esta comunicación se pretende analizar cómo esta interpretación afecta la manera en que entendemos históricamente nuestras realidades sociales y educativas y de qué modo podemos plantear en un horizonte epistémico alternativo. Para ello, nos valdremos de las posibilidades tanto analíticas como programáticas que ofrece el pensiero debole del filósofo italiano Gianni Vattimo y, más específicamente, de la potencialidad que la apertura de su hermenéutica nihilista alberga para reconocer, desde una perspectiva historiográfica, la diversidad ontológica, política y epistemológica que gobierna tanto las colectividades como los procesos y las instituciones educativas. Así, esta comunicación pretende un acercamiento en clave educativa a la hermenéutica nihilista de Vattimo (1986), cuyo proyecto hermenéutico busca debilitar el dominio colonial y la violencia que este re(produce) con el propósito de fomentar un modo de pensar diferente que no se base en principios o fundamentos estables y eternos. Y poder así proponer unas bases epistemológicas sobre las que sustentar otros modos decoloniales de historiar la educación (Schubring, 2021). De esta manera, y tras el acercamiento mencionado, acercamiento que pretende sostener una humildad epistémica que conceda a toda perspectiva algún acceso válido a la realidad educativa y a los diversos modos de historiarla (Suárez-Krabbe, 2017), en esta comunicación se busca cuestionar los tres tipos de colonialidad que configuran el modo habitual de hacer historia de la educación hoy: la colonialdad del poder (un poder que proviene del capitalismo neoliberal y que establece las agendas investigacionales en materia historiográfica), la colonialidad del saber (que asume que hay diferencias jerárquicas entre los modos de producción y validación de los saberes histórico-educativos) y la colonialdad del ser (que produce tanto objetos a historiar de primera y de segunda clase como sujetos historiadores subalternos) (Castro-Gómez y Grosfoguel, 2007). Todo ello bajo unas coordenadas académicas que insisten en el ineludible sentido unitario de la Historia (Vattimo, 1989) y que al hacerlo dan por supuesto el carácter atemporal y estructurante de unos principios (Dios, occidente, género binario, naturaleza, etc.) sobre los que las realidades educativas se sostienen y frente a la pretensión y al alcance universal de los cuales sólo queda la sumisión, la transmisión y la reproducción. Así pues, la lectura crítica de éstos tres tipos de colonialidades ha de permitir esbozar, de un modo introductorio y propositivo, algunas orientaciones que podrían facilitar, en un horizonte cercano, los enfoques histórico-educativos más propicios para la decolonialidad a partir de la hermenéutica nihilista vattimaniana.

Past research on the Gary Plan and the city of Gary, Indiana, led me from a rather classic to an ecological approach to educational history. As I “burrowed” more and more into the case, descended deeper and deeper, let go of what I thought I knew and opened myself to the unknown (cf. Crone et al. 2022: 9), I widened my view and, as it turned out, lost myself more and more in a multitude of angles and perspectives. Ultimately, a reflection on the collected literature opened a discussion, which offered impulses for research across disciplinary borders (Van Gorp 2019). In this paper, I’ll finish my travelogue by no longer resisting closure and returning to the starting point of the journey, my home in educational history (cf. Van Gorp & Herman 2022). The crux in closing the journey (present), however, is to understand closure as “liminality”, as the hinge between “plotted instability” (the past) and “the ongoing” (future) (Levine 2022: 250, 254). By identifying Gary’s debris as “ruins of empire” (Stoler 2008: 200), hence (re)connecting the Gary case to colonial history and a decolonizing stance, I emphasize not merely “the educational”, but also the social, the racial, the political, and the economic in Gary’s past and present ‘‘educational situation’’ (cf. Seaman & Quay 2015: 242). Exploring Gary’s fluctuating urban realm, this paper discusses the connections between race and education by moving along and across the liminalities, boundaries, borders, edges, margins, wastelands, interfaces… that structure inequality. I consider what I intend to do as a radical practice, defining “doing” educational history as a form of fieldwork, which is a term and a practice that is shaped to reflect diverse ways of “working across, in between and outside of disciplinary bounds.” This approach is “grounded in the field” (of educational history) as an “open situation”. “The radical” in this regard refers to a practice that doesn’t “quite fit into discrete disciplines”, but which “borrow(s) from many and, in doing so, radically alter(s) the potential for (educational history as a) practice” (Crone et al. 2022: 8, 12). Inspired by Walter Benjamin’s Arcades Project, I forced myself into the guise of “ragpicker” (cf. Sontag 1979: 79). Like Benjamin, I started to organise my “collectibles”, hundreds of pages of notes, quotations, comments and reflections as “convolutes,” an assemblage of text materials that belong together. A montage thus obtained is like a patchwork, playing with distances, transitions, intersections, perpetually shifting contexts and ironic juxtapositions (Eiland & McLaughlin 2002: ix, xi), which brings “the past into tension-filled constellation with the present moment” (Pred 1995: 24). By doing so, this papers witnesses “a happiness in creation that is not without its own pain and struggle, a sensation that feels sometimes buoyant and sometimes earthbound, sometimes like lighting fires in snow, sometimes like tying knots in which you have been bound” (Rich 1994: 49).

How can the historiography of educational ecologies (HEC) – an interdisciplinary approach that ambitions to entangle an intertwined timespan of present and past, and is concerned with spatial relations, within a collaborative, artistic, cartographical, and narrative approach (HEC, 2022) – account for a de-colonisation of knowledge-power relations in the processes of the history of education research? The pianist, composer and music teacher José Vianna da Motta’s life and work has earlier been presented as having privileged outset conditions to stand as a HEC case study (Author, date): the gaps to rebound the complex web of educational resources split between Lisbon and Berlin; the demands of multiperspectivism – touching on Education, Musicology, Arts Education, Sociology and Literature; the challenges on cartographic and narrative methods; as much as invitations towards participatory and arts-based research processes. But what does Vianna da Motta (VM) as a case study have to do with everything else? (Van Gorp et al., 2022). By everything else I would like to explore in VM’s historiography (e.g., Branco, 1987; Caseirão, 2020) and published sources how is the relationship between the Pianist’s African routes accounting for the ecologies of existence. VM was born in the African island of São Tome, son the marriage between the local noble Ignez Vianna to the Portuguese Pharmacist José António da Motta (1882-1911). The family came to Lisbon when it’s leader could no longer bear the tropical diseases and was based for a couple of years in Colares, near Sintra, where the German born King of Portugal, Ferdinand von Sachsen-Coburg-Koháry lived with his wife, the opera singer Countess of Edla. The royal couple favoured their neighbours’ child José as prodigy and gave them permanent support that enabled VM to live and study alone in Germany (1882-1914) (Branco, 1987; Author, date). Eventually he was considered among Xaver Scharwenka’s, Liszt’s and von Bülow’s best students and one of the most sought after and well-paid teachers (Caseirão, 2020). In order to do this, he was both privileged by the education in the centre of Europe and consequently by the adoption of a central-musical ethos balanced by the capitalisation of his peripherical routes (Vargas, 2011) – as a Portuguese, but never as an African. After more than 10 years in Berlin VM comes for a long stay of almost two years in Lisbon, where he gave 22 concerts, and only travelled in tournée to France for a couple of times. The only glimpse of his African routes is stated in an image published in a Lisbon’s’ newspaper in may 1893 (Camacho, 1893). Apparently, it worked as a way to belittle his tremendous success in all the concerts he gave and told in detail to his ‘Mütterchen’ Margarethe Lemke, a sort of affective adoptive mother (Motta, 2018), and contrasts with the well-known photography as with the Santiago insignia taken in october 1893. What does this contrast account for in terms of the ecologies of existence besides my double gesture of returning VM to his African routes?

Since the 1970s, sociocultural historiography has brought innovations to the history of education by expanding sources, methods, and approaches, diversifying the objects of study, formulating questions about legislation, examining educational programs and institutions, and broadening the notion of intellectuals to identify individuals involved with education and constituting school cultures that are expressed in their languages, practices, and knowledge. In the early 21st century, the State University of Bahia (UNEB) also undergoes a process of renewal. Prompted by social movements of civil society and by teachers, staff, and students, it opens up to a process of democratization, incorporating proponents of new utopias, such as living with diversity, recognizing the plurality of identities, and fostering solidarity among peoples and individuals from all nations (Nascimento, 2009). Among the policies adopted in this context is the implementation of the institution's first stricto sensu Graduate Program in Education and Contemporaneity (PPGEduc), which aims to train professionals to intervene in educational realities marked by poverty, social inequality, and regional imbalances. This communication intends to present the trajectory of the Research Group on Education, History, Cultures, and Languages (GEHCEL), created in 2010 and linked to the Research Line on Civilizing Processes: Education, Memory, and Cultural Plurality of PPGEduc/UNEB. This group houses educators and historians who, in their research, incorporate innovations both in the historiography of education and in the perspective of academic production committed to new utopias, thematizing the institutions, cultures, and educational practices carried out by individuals who have experienced relationships and disputes in the daily life of educational institutions and society. It seeks, thus, to give visibility to the multiplicity and diversity of individuals who have acted/act in the production and transmission of knowledge, wisdom, and values in various educational processes. In this communication, there will be an assessment of the theses, dissertations, and monographs produced by the group which, through dialogue with theoretical and methodological references from sociocultural history and the history of education (Thompson, 1987; Williams,1990; Hall, 2005; Le Goff, 1990; Chartier, 1990; Certeau 2011, 2012; Darnton, 1986; Guinzburg, 2006; Bakhtin, 2013; Burke, 2006; Elias, 1993; Alves, 2019; Magalhães, 2004; Julia, 2001; Paulilo, 2019; Vidal e Faria Filho, 2005; Veiga, 2019, 2022; Galvão e Melo, 2019; Lopes e Galvão, 2005; Gatti Junior, 2007), interrogate sources related to educational institutions and to non-formal educational practices, such as curricula, laws, regulations, ordinances, enrollment records, education reports, teaching materials, educational prints, publications in newspapers, magazines and periodicals, oral traditions, cordel pamphlets, iconographies, among others. In this way, GEHCEL has contributed to the renewal of the history of Brazilian education through the production of oral sources, the identification of unpublished sources and collections, the verticalization of regional and original themes, and the insertion of characters and evidence of social movements in defense of education that are little known by regional and national educational historiography.

A partir da década de 1970, a historiografia sociocultural trouxe renovações para a história da educação através da ampliação de fontes, métodos e abordagens, diversificando os objetos de estudo, formulando questões sobre a legislação, examinando programas e instituições educacionais, ampliando a noção de intelectuais para identificar sujeitos/as/es implicados com a educação e constituidores de culturas escolares que se expressam em suas linguagens, práticas e saberes. No começo do século XXI, a Universidade do Estado da Bahia (UNEB) também passa por um processo de renovação. Provocada por movimentos sociais da sociedade civil e dos professores, funcionários e estudantes, ela se abre para um processo de democratização, incorporando defensores de novas utopias, tais como a convivência com os diferentes, o reconhecimento da pluralidade de identidades e o desenvolvimento da solidariedade entre os povos e indivíduos de todas as nações (Nascimento, 2009). Dentre as políticas adotadas nesse contexto, está a implantação do primeiro Programa de Pós-Graduação stricto sensu da instituição em Educação e Contemporaneidade (PPGEduc), que tem por objetivo formar profissionais para intervir em realidades educacionais marcadas pela pobreza, pela desigualdade social e pelos desequilíbrios regionais. A presente comunicação pretende apresentar a trajetória do Grupo de Pesquisa Educação, História, Culturas e Linguagens – GEHCEL, criado em 2010 vinculado à Linha Processos Civilizatórios: Educação, Memória e Pluralidade Cultural do PPGEduc/UNEB. Tal grupo abriga pedagogos e historiadores que, em suas pesquisas, incorporam renovações tanto da historiografia da educação, quanto da perspectiva de produção acadêmica comprometida com novas utopias, tematizando as instituições, culturas e práticas educativas realizadas por sujeitos que experienciaram relações e disputas no cotidiano das instituições educacionais e na sociedade. Busca, assim, dar visibilidade à multiplicidade e diversidade dos sujeitos que atuaram/atuam na produção e transmissão de conhecimentos, saberes e valores nos diversos processos educativos. Nesta comunicação far-se-á um balanço das teses, dissertações e monografias produzidas pelo grupo que, a partir do diálogo com referenciais teórico-metodológicos da história sociocultural e da história da educação (Thompson, 1987; Williams,1990; Hall, 2005; Le Goff, 1990; Chartier, 1990; Certeau 2011, 2012; Darnton, 1986; Guinzburg, 2006; Bakhtin, 2013; Burke, 2006; Elias, 1993; Alves, 2019; Magalhães, 2004; Julia, 2001; Paulilo, 2019; Vidal e Faria Filho, 2005; Veiga, 2019, 2022; Galvão e Melo, 2019; Lopes e Galvão, 2005; Gatti Junior, 2007), interrogam fontes relacionadas às instituições educacionais e às práticas educativas não-formais, como currículos, leis, regulamentos, portarias, livros de matrícula, relatórios de educação, materiais de ensino, impressos didáticos, publicações em jornais, revistas e periódicos, tradições orais, folhetos de cordel, iconografias, dentre outras. Dessa forma, o CEHCEL tem contribuído com a renovação da história da educação brasileira na produção de fontes orais, na identificação de fontes e acervos inéditos, na verticalização de temáticas regionais e originais, na inserção de personagens e evidência de movimentos sociais em defesa da educação pouco conhecidos pela historiografia educacional regional e nacional.

The history of education emerged as a subject in teaching training curricula, composing the corpus of knowledge and values necessary for professional practice in national systems. In the pedagogy courses that appeared in European universities in the 19th century, pedagogy and philosophy were associated, as well as philosophy and history. This association indicates the expectation that a philosophical meaning could be extracted from the past to guide teachers' pedagogical and moral choices. The history of education was a far-reaching overview based on the chain of ideas and events that accompanied the passage of civilization from primitive groups to industrial civilizations. Heir to the Enlightenment, this conception enshrined Antiquity as the cradle of civilization, where the origins were found not only in philosophical-pedagogical conceptions but also in contemporary forms of school and education systems.

In the Brazilian tradition, the linear, evolutionary, and Eurocentric notion and the Ciceronian character of history left deep and long-lasting marks. From the training manuals for normalists (c. 1930-1940) until, at least, the teaching programs of the 1970s-1980s, the history of education sought in ancient times the antecedents of the school and the curriculum, the modes of transmission of knowledge organized and written codes, pedagogical philosophies and utopias. In a chapter in the collection Structure and Functioning of Primary and Secondary Education, Ruy Afonso Nunes, professor at the Faculty of Education of the University of São Paulo, sought the origins of the "middle school" in "Greece." He justified that because the classical Greeks had developed the "Western conception of personality formation, which encompasses the directed development of man's physical and spiritual potential". To a student on the Pedagogy Course, Nunes reportedly said: "Knowing the history of the University and Education is fundamental to evaluate this institution and our teaching practice better." Both assertions express pillars of the History of Education programs at the University of São Paulo, in the transition from the Department of Education of the Faculty of Philosophy, Sciences, and Letters to the Faculty of Education: the "grand narrative" that links Greco-Roman Antiquity to Western Middle Ages, the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, and history as the "teacher of life."

In light of the criticisms of Peter Burke, Edward Said, Immanuel Wallerstein, and Jack Goody regarding the "grand narratives" and the "canons" of classic cultural histories, we examine elements of the intellectual production, teaching programs, and teaching of the first generation of teachers from the Faculty of Education of the University of São Paulo (1969). We conclude that this generation bequeathed to university teaching in the history of education the characteristic elements of the old disciplinary tradition: complementarity with the history of philosophy, the search for "origins" and "lessons" of history and Eurocentrism, which, assuming the contemporary forms of pedagogy and school as legacies of the classical Greeks and European Christians, did not grant space to non-European societies, nor did it attribute value to transfers or miscegenation.

A história da educação surgiu como matéria nos currículos de formação do magistério, compondo o corpus de conhecimentos e valores necessários para o exercício profissional nos sistemas nacionais. Nas cadeiras de Pedagogia que, no século 19, surgiam em universidades europeias, pedagogia e filosofia estavam associadas, assim como filosofia e história. Isso indicava a expectativa de que se pudesse extrair do passado um sentido filosófico a orientar as escolhas pedagógicas e morais dos professores. A história da educação era uma panorâmica de longo alcance, fundada no encadeamento de ideias e acontecimentos que acompanharam o passo da civilização dos agrupamentos primitivos à civilização industrial. Herdeira do iluminismo, essa concepção consagrava a Antiguidade como o berço da civilização, em que se encontravam as origens, não só das concepções filosófico-pedagógicas, como das formas contemporâneas da escola e dos sistemas de ensino.

Na tradição brasileira a noção linear, evolutiva e eurocêntrica, assim como o caráter ciceroniano da história deixaram profundas e longevas marcas. Dos manuais de formação de normalistas (c. 1930-1940) até, pelo menos, os programas de ensino dos anos 1970-1980, a história da educação buscava nos tempos remotos os antecedentes da escola e do currículo, os modos de transmissão dos saberes organizados e dos códigos escritos, as filosofias e utopias pedagógicas. Em capítulo da coletânea Estrutura e Funcionamento do Ensino de 1º e 2º graus, Ruy Afonso Nunes, professor da Faculdade de Educação da Universidade de São Paulo, buscou na “Grécia” as origens da “escola média”. Sua escolha se justificava pelo fato de os gregos clássicos terem elaborado a “concepção ocidental da formação da personalidade, que abrange o desenvolvimento dirigido das potencialidades físicas e espirituais do homem”. A um aluno no Curso de Pedagogia, Nunes teria dito: “Conhecer a história da Universidade e da Educação é fundamental para melhor avaliar essa instituição e a nossa própria prática do ensino”. Ambas as assertivas expressam pilares dos programas de História da Educação na Universidade de São Paulo, na transição do Departamento de Educação da Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras para a Faculdade de Educação: a “grande narrativa” que enlaça a Antiguidade greco-romana à Idade Média Ocidental, ao Renascimento e ao Iluminismo, e a história como “mestra da vida”.

À luz das críticas de Peter Burke, Edward Said, Immanuel Wallerstein e Jack Goody às “grandes narrativas” e aos “cânones” das clássicas histórias da cultura, examinamos elementos da produção intelectual, dos programas de ensino e do magistério da primeira geração de docentes da Faculdade de Educação da Universidade de São Paulo (1969). Conclui-se que essa geração legou ao ensino universitário de história da educação os elementos característicos da antiga tradição disciplinar: a complementaridade com a história da filosofia, a busca de “origens” e “lições” da história e o eurocentrismo, que, assumindo as formas contemporâneas da pedagogia e da escola como heranças dos gregos clássicos e dos cristãos europeus, não concedeu espaço às sociedades não-europeias, tampouco atribuiu valor a transferências ou mestiçagens.