Arena das geografias ensinadas: o conflito entre o racismo e as resistências antirracistas nos Colégios Federais da Baixada Fluminense

Abstract

The processes that led to the current spatial structure of Baixada Fluminense are characterized by disputes involving racist and antiracist entities since the colonial period, making the region a racially conflicted space. Currently, the Baixada Fluminense is a region where the majority of the population is Black, which makes it a target of public policies and other spatial actions articulated among hegemonic classes that seek to control it through systemic discrimination, legitimized and reproduced due to the racist ideology present in the social imaginary, and thus, in its spatial structure. One of the strategies used to consolidate the racism practiced against the population of Baixada is the creation and dissemination of negative images associated with the region, portraying it as a place of disease, dirt, and danger, where the only solution would be violence itself. All these factors occur simultaneously as the population displays various articulations that manifest the resistance of their bodies, cultures, identities, and their very existence. This conflictual characteristic of the region will turn some of its spatial forms into arenas that will also be contested between groups seeking to maintain racism and legitimize discrimination for the control of the Baixada population, and others aiming to reproduce knowledge and information that contribute to the development of an antiracist spatial consciousness, which strengthens resistance and deconstructs racism as one of the organizing factors of the various discriminations existing against its population. In this context, the Federal Education Network schools become targets of public policies for expansion into peripheral areas in the early 2000s, reaching Baixada Fluminense and being influenced by this spatial reality. The prestige that these institutions hold, along with the quality of service they offer, makes these schools desirable for a large part of the region's population, leading to the motivation behind this research to turn the educational practices surrounding the geography taught in these schools into an object of study. Aware of the relevance of geography in shaping students' spatial consciousness, this research will delimit the role played by the geography taught from a racial perspective in the schools of the Federal Education Network. The hypothesis of this research suggests that the geography taught in these schools is influenced by the spatial reality of the region and presents aspects of both racism and antiracism in its teaching development. Following this line of reasoning, the objective of this research is to investigate how the conflictual racial dimension of Baixada Fluminense manifests through the geography being taught in the Federal Education Network high schools in the region. To achieve this, there are three specific objectives: to understand the racial dimension within the geography taught in Brazil; to highlight the racial conflict within the historical processes that led to the current spatial configuration of Baixada Fluminense; and to examine, with an emphasis on racial issues, the curricula and teaching practices of geography teachers in the Federal Education Network schools in the region. Thus, the methodology of this research consists of a qualitative approach, through a documentary analysis of the delimited schools, and bibliographical research, under a perspective of geographic space concepts, its forms and functions, structures and processes, and structural racism. Additionally, interviews with geography teachers from the researched schools were conducted and analyzed. Therefore, this research allowed for the identification of how some aspects of racial conflicts in Baixada Fluminense and in education itself manifest within the geography being taught in the federal schools of the region.