Que país é esse? Geografias em disputa na Base Nacional Comum Curricular

Abstract

This study aims to analyze the National Common Basic Curriculum in its political drafting processes, focusing the investigation on the proposal for the later grades of elementary school in the subject of Geography. I have developed this analysis through the lens of a post-structural theoretical scope, mainly, of the dialogue with Ernesto Laclau and Homi Bhabha. I postulate the negation of originality in the production of senses, and I consider the curriculum as a space for multiple negotiations and articulations, which generate meaning not only for Geography, but also in other interconnected contexts, without a priori ideas. Taking the National Common Basic Curriculum as the central object, I understand it as a curricular policy which seeks to establish a sealed-off process around a national ideology and has produced meaning in the subject of Geography. The analytical material of this work comprises the final authenticated version of the National Common Basic Curriculum for 2018, the documents geared towards this policy produced by private agents, and the texts entitled as “critical reviews” produced at the request of the ministry of education throughout the drafting of the National Common Basic Curriculum by individuals associated with the Geography-teaching community. The data and the analysis produced have demonstrated that the agenda around a national ideology, which is present in the curricular policy, has reverberated in the discipline of Geography, producing a discourse that has sought to focus on a materialized idea of space, rigidified in an a priori essence, and subjected to changes caused and demanded in a linear temporality. Nevertheless, I have attempted to argue that this agenda has not fully blossomed, since it has generated for Geography a proposal that was at odds with several theoretical branches of the geographical discipline, among which I would highlight the contributions of the critical Geography by Ruy Moreira, Lana Cavalcanti and Sonia Castelar, as well as the post-critical approaches produced by Rogério Haesbeart and Dooren Massey. I would stress that this multidirectional divergence is due to the performative articulation of the policy with other curricular demands, such as the development of competencies and skills. This approach favored the search for the upbringing of national subjects at the expense of theoretical-methodological demands, claimed by the different social actors who comprise the discipline of Geography as a community. I argue that, once the State assumes this design with democratic features, the curricular proposal for the discipline attempts to forge common-ground, critical and identity-related meanings, as a way to endorse a national curriculum project.