Fragmentos de uma educação em ruínas: Analisando disputas em educação, diversidade e democracia em tempos de conservadorismos

Abstract

In this thesis, I conduct an interdisciplinary analysis of the political and moral conflicts, both internal and external to “Brazilian education” as a scientific field, a social right, and a contested concept. Adopting an ethnographic perspective situated within the “ruins” of the democratic project, I investigate how the conservative backlash (2011-2022) constructed and exploited moral panics around a strawman enemy: the so-called “gender ideology.” The “analytical kaleidoscope,” a methodology developed for this thesis, aids in understanding and unraveling the fragmentation of the period; with it, I trace the transformation of the Escola Sem Homofobia (School Without Homophobia) project into the allegory of the “gay kit,” demonstrating how this discursive operation was central to the election of Jair Bolsonaro. I situate “Professores Contra o Escola Sem Partido” (PCESP) as a paradigmatic case of resistance and “activist-research,” analyzing its strategies for survival and mutual aid amid ideological persecution. My approach, an “anthropology of ruins,” not only recognizes but incorporates the conditions of knowledge production, making the pandemic, political violence, and my own experience as a neurodivergent researcher constitutive parts of the analysis. I argue that these mechanisms of social control are not new, but a reactivation of an authoritarian project with deep roots in the erasure of memory from the military dictatorship. Thus, this thesis proposes to be a tool for researchers interested in the intersection of gender, the State, and education; in the political uses of moralism; and in feminist and cyborg methodologies for studying times of crisis. It is a contribution to understanding how education has become one of the decisive trenches in the defense of democracy